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by drainbamage954 (cats_cradle6766)



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Family Issues, M/M, aspects of homophobia, mentions of past physical abuse, slight exhibitionism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-27
Updated: 2014-12-27
Packaged: 2018-05-01 15:26:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 72,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5210987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cats_cradle6766/pseuds/drainbamage954
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five years ago, Baekhyun had left home to go and chase his dreams and with love on his side. A lot can change in five years.</p>
            </blockquote>





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**Author's Note:**

> Written for the baektobaek 2014 exchange. The setting of the story is intentionally not specified, with a mix between cultures and society and industry. Music playlists for this story can be found [here](https://play.spotify.com/user/coffeeempress/playlist/5WK7lfFMGTSwwqWWerYRhC) and [here](http://8tracks.com/foxprintshells/i-told-you-forever).

⌚*ﾟ

_"We can do this."_

_Words spoken soft but with assurance as fingers strum gently over his skin in the same manner as they do over transparent nylon strings. The same melody twists a tongue on words as it does under a spotlight or the red blinking light of a camcorder._

_The sunlight filters in dreamily through the lace curtains of the window, hazy and golden in the afternoon progression amid the high drone of summer. It reflects off the dust in the air, lighting it into specks of fine gold drifting above and catching between shadows where the sunlight hides. Fingers with callouses on the knuckles and pads that should be soft slip aimlessly through dark strands, an ease to their movements that only comes from comfort and practice. Not unlike a slow blink._

_"We can?" he asks, turning a bit on the soft space made for him and looking up. The calloused fingertips drift along to brush the soft sensitive skin of his jaw, right by his ears. He looks up, blinking slow and feeling lost in the warmth that settles in the air._

_The light breeze from the open window agitates the dust in the air to shining refracts of light. The sheets of stanza and notations amid endless lines of music and lyrics written between cans of cola and two in the morning rustle gently ._

_"One year," is almost whispered, an effortless smile spread over lips in a constant lazy happiness he will never tire of. "One year, and we can do it. We'll be there. Together." Brown eyes with the richness of earth gaze down into his. A light imprint sets into cheeks, pronounced in the left as sunlight slips down skin, still so young._

_It tempts, just as always, for the tip of Baekhyun's finger to press into it. He wets his lips, gazing up from where he's been spread out on the bedspread he knows better than his own. That he loves more than his own._

_"Then you'll be up on stage," Baekhyun says, smiling up as his fingers twist in the hem of a sweatshirt that isn't his. It’s too low on his shoulders that aren't wide enough to fill them, too soft between his fingers when all his clothing has too much starch. He smiles despite the soft ache in his chest, the longing that always persists when he thinks of this, when he lets himself dream and believe. "With all those spot lights and screaming fans. With that old beat up guitar and waving with both hands. Making jokes that you can't remember the punch line for, and then laughing at yourself and everyone will love you."_

_"You're forgetting the most important part," says that voice which is the only thing which can help Baekhyun sleep after he's crawled in through the window with golden sunlight and lightly wafting curtains. Calloused fingertips draw through Baekhyun's hair, pushing it back from his face with a sensitivity and tenderness that makes Baekhyun's breath shudder to a stop, his eyes drifting closed._

_"You can't wear your glasses on stage," Baekhyun tells him, smiling. Unable to stop it, he lets himself be safe and holds onto a future away, far away from here. Where there is a dream and he's loved. "You know it makes you look stupid."_

_"You told me I look hot in them," muses as those fingers tickle him gently. Baekhyun squirms, worming away and pushing himself up, turning over and breathless as his hands slide up warmth and reassurance. He ends with his heart pulsing in his chest, glowing as warm as the gold sunlight, sprawled back on the bed as those dark deep eyes look up into his._

_"You do," Baekhyun tells him, before leaning down. Closing his eyes, he takes the kiss that is given to him from smiling lips as he holds on with fingers tracing the edges of collarbones and smooth skin. "So, really, what I'm saying is, I don't want those fangirls to get ideas when they see you."_

_"I'll be too busy fighting them off of you," chuckles back at him. Baekhyun can't help but laugh, relaxing to press his face into the gentle curve of a neck and breathing in freshness and happiness. "I have to distract all of them, hundreds of millions of our fans, fighting to get to you because you're so damn cute." Baekhyun just smiles, eyes opening to look out of the window and into the light, letting it paint over his gaze. "I can't let them take away my partner."_

_"Your voice," Baekhyun says, his own feeling so small right now, held back when he wants to let it out, waiting. One year. One year and they can do it. "You're the music and I'm-"_

_"My soul," hums against his forehead and Baekhyun breathes, curling into the arms around him, holding on. "We can do it," murmurs against his skin from soft lips. "We can get out of here, make it big, and all our dreams will come true. I'll be able to show the world my music and you'll be able to do it all, show the world how amazing you are."_

_Baekhyun scoffs, a rough laugh chucking up from his chest as he pulls back and looks down at the smiling face amid faded and worn quilt patterns. "Because I'm so amazing," he says. He tosses his hair from his face when it falls, cocking a grin at the young man gazing up at him with the shine of promises in his eyes._

_"The most amazing thing in my life," hits Baekhyun deeper than he shows, instead holding still. Hands that Baekhyun could never replace the feeling of on his skin slide down his arms, steadying, reassuring. "Which is why we're going to do this. Together. Because I can't do it without you, Baekhyun. I don’t want to."_

_"Good," Baekhyun says. Staring down and smiling, he feels the shake at the back of his heart, in the edges of his throat that's always there, begin to melt a bit. "Because I can't do it without you."_

♭

The sound of cicadas is loud as the car door to a sedan opens, the cooler air from the interior rushing out as the heavy summer heat from outside rush in. The air is sticky, hot and heavy with humidity clinging to the skin just enough to make it uncomfortable. Stepping from the car, Baekhyun squints even from behind the protection of his sunglasses. The sunlight out here always felt harsher than it did back in the city.

It’s quieter here, the sounds of the summer insects replacing most of the usual sounds he’s familiar with. Instead of cars and trucks and the constant hum of city life, it’s the high buzzing of insects and pick ups. The sweat prickles at the back of his neck, dripping down his spine and stiff shoulders.

Mouth in a thin line, Baekhyun allows himself a pause, taking in the familiar sight of the town before him. Preparing himself.

It’s been five years since he last was here. Five years since he got in a car and told himself he was never going to come back.

Sighing and shaking his head slightly, Baekhyun turns, tossing his work blazer into the front seat and slamming his car door shut. It’s a softer sound, made from high-end machinery and auto-mechanics, unlike the old pick up he once drove. His car was new last year, and it stands out here almost as badly as he does.

Breathing in, Baekhyun steels himself for the next steps, trying to relax and look at ease, happy. Like being back in his hometown after five years isn’t uncomfortable for him.

Walking down the street towards one of the many houses with a quaint picketed fence, Baekhyun realizes almost nothing has changed. It’s a little hard to believe, when everything in the city changes so fast, how it seems like here, he never left.

The sweat at the back of his neck prickles, his clothing sticking to him out here. Once, he’d been the one to stare at the city folk who walked into town with their fancy clothing and perfectly styled hair and skin like porcelain. Once, he’d laughed and let his eyes linger a bit too long, wishing to know what it was like.

It’s a bit like being alienated, and Baekhyun feels like he’s not welcome even as he smiles as best as he can. He stops on the white old porch of a familiar house, and knocks three times.

Inside the house, voices suddenly rush towards him, bright and just like he remembers. The door is opened to an old lined face, gray and white hair pulled back into a wispy bun, and soft warm brown eyes.

“Hello,” Baekhyun says, smiling the same smile he uses with the people in the office he trusts. He forgot how to smile to family a long time ago.

“Hello!” the older woman says, her eyes dancing in a way that is so familiar, so genuine it makes Baekhyun’s own resolution slip slightly. “How can we help you? We weren’t expecting anyone until later, unless you’re not here to help with the sinks.”

“Actually, I’m here to see Lay,” Baekhyun says, his face impassive. “I believe he lives here.”

The woman’s face falters, and she steps back, looking over her shoulder. “Lay?” she says, her older voice wobbling a bit on the name. “Do we know anyone who’s named a verb?”

“ _Mother_ ,” sounds another voice, slightly offended and amused.

The old woman laughs, turning back to Baekhyun. “I’m sorry, I just still can’t believe he chose such a ridiculous title,” she says, her eyes twinkling. “What did you want from him? Did he get into another copywriting issue?”

“No,” Baekhyun says, shaking his head and letting out his own laugh. “No, nothing of that. I just wanted to talk to him about something. I have an offer of sorts.”

The old woman narrows her eyes, lips pursing. “What kind of a something? A something where you steal his music or a something where you pay him for it?”

“I promise, I wouldn’t steal his work,” Baekhyun says with a louder laugh even as his fingers twitch, wanting to tighten into a fist. “I could never-“

“What’s going on?” says a new voice, warm and Baekhyun’s eyes immediately snap to look for it. A young man, in a loose tank strides into view behind the older woman and her daughter. “Is the sink guy here? I still can’t-“ His eyes land on Baekhyun’s through the screen door, and he stops. Then his eyes widen, and he takes in a small gasp. “Baekhyun?”

Immediately, as soon as his name is said, the other two women turn, heads snapping. Baekhyun laughs a bit, smiling a bit too wide for company policy as he looks at them and feels a different heat crawl up his neck. “What, do I really look that different?” he asks, looking into the wide eyes of the old woman.

Baekhyun never gets an answer, both women suddenly letting out a loud slew of words at the same time. The screen porch door swings open excitedly as they pull him inside. Baekhyun laughs, trying to shy away from their warm hands cupping his face and exclaiming at how much older, more mature, more manly and professional he looks. How they could hardly recognize him. He’s offered lemonade and a fresh slice of cake as the other man stares at him, his eyes still wide and mouth open in surprise.

His lower lip is still so full he looks a bit dazed as his attention stays on Baekhyun. He’s grown more into it now, looking less like a confused kid, and more like a handsomely perplexed adult.

It’s still oddly cute.

As soon as their eyes lock properly, it’s like something ignites in the other man, and he’s suddenly smiling, entire form lighting up. He looks like the sun, shining and happy and warm, arms spreading wide as he steps to Baekhyun. He hugs him like an old friend, pulling Baekhyun to him and smelling of the outdoors and clean laundry. “You should have told me you were coming!” he says, pulling back to hold Baekhyun at arms length, taking him in with eyes just as bright as his grandmother’s.

“Yes, well, then it wouldn’t have been much of a surprise,” Baekhyun tries, his smile slipping as the man doesn’t step away, staying close.

“It’s wonderful to see you,” the man says, and the sincerity in his voice is so strong.

Baekhyun swallows, wishing he had a briefcase in his hand. Something like what Junmyeon or Song Qian carries around and makes them look so much more professional. He regrets having turned it down now, the excuse it made him look old bitter and dry at the back of his mouth.

“I’m glad I caught you while you’re still home, Lay,” Baekhyun says, internally wincing at how formal he sounds. It makes it worse like this, when he’s welcomed in like family and he’s… He watches as the man’s expression before him falters. “I wanted to talk to you actually.”

“Lay?” he repeats after Baekhyun and then laughs. “Come on, you don’t have to joke around here.”

“Baekhyun said he had an offer for you, Yixing,” Grandmother Zhang says, her voice dancing as much as her eyes.

“An offer?” Yixing says, his eyes on his grandmother, a small drop in his smile. “What kind of offer?” He looks back at Baekhyun, a small crease appears between his eyes. “You’re not visiting?”

Yixing’s hands are warm on Baekhyun’s arms, sticking his heated skin to the expensive fabric of his shirt. It’s a simple shirt, his entire suitcase back at his hotel room packed with the most basic clothing he owns. Comfortable and bland and basic, so he doesn’t stand out. He feels too hot and just wants the safety of his air conditioned car.

His condo back in the city temperature controlled and away from this.

“I came to talk to you, Lay,” Baekhyun says, his voice back in the simplistic smoothness that he uses every day. Yixing’s eyes flicker and he lets out a soft laugh.

“Why are you using that name? You know it’s not really who I am.”

Baekhyun reaches up and shifts, letting Yixing’s hands fall from him as he smiles. “Well, isn’t that what you’re known for now?” he asks, and pushes a bit of the jocular attitude he’s known for. It helps with his nerves.

Yixing’s face alters, his eyes flickering to his mother and grandmother who was watching them expectantly. “Would you mind if-“

“Oh, go catch up, you two,” Grandmother Zhang says, letting out a laugh as Yixing’s mother smiles kindly from the table. “It’s not every day that your old friend comes back from a world away.”

Yixing’s room is just as Baekhyun remembered it, the window on the far side of the room, the old bed still set up, and the desk still strewn with sheet music. There’s new instruments, but the floorboards near the doorframe still creak and Baekhyun swallows at the threshold.

It takes a moment before Yixing seems to realize Baekhyun hasn’t come in. He turns, and his dark eyes are curious. “Can I come in?” Baekhyun asks.

“Since when did you ever ask to come in before?” Yixing laughs, hand already resting on the neck of his guitar. “You still don’t have to ask, Baekhyun, you’re always welcome.”

Baekhyun swallows down the reply that itches at the back of his throat, and steps into the room.

⌚*ﾟ

_”No.”_

_Junmyeon sighs, dropping the folder of paper work onto his desk and looking older than his years. “You haven’t even finished listening to what I’ve-“_

_“No,” Baekhyun says again, and doesn't move from where he’s half sprawled in Junmyeon’s large leather office chair. “I don’t want to do it. It’s stupid, and I shouldn’t have to. Get one of the rookies to go out.”_

_“The rookies are out training and getting recognition so they can knock you off the charts forever,” Junmyeon throws back at him, turning to Baekhyun with a frown on his face. “You’re on thin ice as it is. You can’t say no.”_

_“And yet I just did,” Baekhyun says with a sweet smile, lolling a bit in Junmyeon’s comfortable chair. “Funny how that happens. Why don’t you do it, since you’re so charming and all, oh great admirable mentor.”_

_“I’m your manager, not your mentor,” Junmyeon chides, knocking Baekhyun’s feet off his desk with a pointed frown. It melts a second later before Junmyeon straightens, his face setting. “You’re not a show anymore. Stop acting like you still wear those shoes.”_

_“I’ve still got a few concerts,” Baekhyun reminds, ignoring the dig that the comment takes into his gut._

_“You’ve also got contracts, and your own paperwork, which, I’ll remind you, is piling up on your desk.” Junmyeon’s hands are on his hips and his bangs have fallen into his face. He looks annoyed, and once it was Baekhyun’s greatest joy to get Junmyeon to this stage of irritation with him._

_But that was before, two years ago when Baekhyun was the top of the product line, with sold out concerts and fangirls. That was when Junmyeon was running around trying to put him on a leash._

_Now Baekhyun’s leash is the pile of bills to be paid next to that paperwork on his desk. Baekhyun pauses a moment for effect, watching Junmyeon as he settles into the chair, before he lets out a long breath. “Okay,” he says, sitting up and bouncing to his feet. “So say I take this job, go out there, and play mentor again. Get this guy working under me as the newest prodigy and get both our names on the map, then what?”_

_“Then you get paid,” Junmyeon tells him grudgingly, fingers slipping to push his hair back from his face. He needs a haircut. He’s looking sloppy again, and too tired. Baekhyun didn’t used to care. “You stand to get recognized again, get your name leveled higher, and if this guy makes it big, you’ll get the credit.”_

_“Is that why you took me on?” Baekhyun asks, side-eyeing Junmyeon._

_Five years ago, Baekhyun had met Junmyeon, nervous but thrumming with excitement. Five years ago, Junmyeon didn’t have lines around his eyes from stress and he sounded hopeful, excited and full of prospect at Baekhyun’s future. His success. Five years ago, Baekhyun saw a dream coming true._

_Now, Baekhyun’s burnt out his light, switched from an active musician to a mentor, working with the trainees and barely getting on stage anymore. Now, Baekhyun wonders if Junmyeon depended on Baekhyun’s success as much as Baekhyun did to achieving his dreams._

_There isn’t a long pause though, Junmyeon simply giving him a soft half smile. Baekhyun pulls away now when Junmyeon reaches forward and ruffles his hair. “No,” Junmyeon tells him. “I took you on because you looked so nice and cute.” He smiles fully when Baekhyun scoffs._

_“You can’t talk to me like that anymore,” Baekhyun tells him, standing to lean against Junmyeon’s desk. “We’re equals now.”_

_“After you’ve dragged your first mentee from a hotel room in downtown and had him throw up on you, then we’ll be equals,” Junmyeon tells him, laughing as Baekhyun wrinkles his nose. “Take the client,” Junmyeon advises. “Make something of him.”_

_Seated back at his own desk, Baekhyun finally opens the file that had been placed on his desk that morning. Immediately, it’s like he’s been filled with ice, his stomach stiffening as he looks at the picture on the inside of the file._

_Junmyeon looks up in annoyance when Baekhyun bursts into his office for the second time that morning. “No,” Baekhyun says, and there isn’t any joke this time. “Not him.”_

_“Baekhyun-“_

_“I’m not going to go- I can’t go and recruit him!” Baekhyun is shaking, having slapped the folder down on Junmyeon’s desk before balling up his fists. “Not him, anyone but him.”_

_“No,” Junmyeon’s tone is ice. “You’re taking him. This is your job-“_

_“Why him, though!” Baekhyun yells. He knows it’s against protocol, and inappropriate. He’s also shaking. “Why can’t I get someone else?”_

_“Baekhyun, you know him!” Junmyeon bursts out, and as his temper snaps, so does Baekhyun’s mouth shut. It hits hard, too close, and he feels cold, drained._

_“I don-“_

_“I’m not just talking about his fanbase on youtube, I looked him up,” Junmyeon explains in clipped notes. “He’s a rising star, riding the youtube wave with his own music, it’s not like you haven’t heard of him.”_

_Baekhyun has, he just tries not to pay attention to it. The name ‘Lay’ has been getting more and more attention by the music industry, and it really only makes sense that his company takes an interest and sends someone out for him._

_“I’ve heard a bit,” Baekhyun concedes quietly._

_“You knew him,” Junmyeon says and Baekhyun opens his mouth to protest. Junmyeon just spins his computer monitor, and Baekhyun’s stomach fills with lead. Staring back at him from the screen is an old pixelated video from youtube. His hair is black in this and he looks young still, cheeks full and bright and his smile so wide and glowing. Beside him is this new uprising star ‘Lay’ who is laughing, leaning into him and cradling an old guitar that used to be his grandfather’s._

_Baekhyun’s throat doesn’t work when he tries to swallow, and he looks at Junmyeon feeling like prey. Junmyeon’s eyes are hard, boring into him, but not unkind. “I kind of, well, a little,” Baekhyun bites his lip to stop his stumbling. “We knew each other.”_

_“You auditioned together,” Junmyeon reminds him. Baekhyun remembers. Baekhyun will always remember. Junmyeon stands from his desk, bracing himself over it to fix his attention on Baekhyun. “You could talk to him, Baekhyun.” No. “You used to know him, to play with him, work with him, share that same dream.”_

_It takes too much effort for Baekhyun to swallow and wet his throat. “You could say that,” he admits quietly. Afternoons that bled into evenings and early morning hours and hoarse voices from too much use._

_“You knew him,” Junmyeon continues, and Baekhyun bites his tongue not to snap back. “He’s talented, and he’s got a base, a huge base that would do everyone well. We need him, and he’s your assignment because it’s your turf.”_

_“I haven’t been home for five years, Junmyeon.” There is a definite edge to Baekhyun’s voice, breath shaking in his chest as he tries to keep himself controlled. “I wouldn’t call it my turf.”_

_“You’re the best choice we have for this,” Junmyeon tells him, and his voice is edged with sincerity now. He’s telling Baekhyun, but some of the compassion that Baekhyun has seen from him is bleeding into him. “I remember when you came in, looking scared and excited like an untrained puppy-“_

_“Flattering,” Baekhyun interrupts._

_“It might be nice for him to have it as an old friend, someone he knows rather than someone from corporate who’s just there to sell him a deal.” Junmyeon tries a smile. “It’s less intimidating.”_

_The five years ago forms of Baekhyun and ‘Lay’ on the computer screen are still moving, singing together and joking, Baekhyun’s face stretched in a smile that looks so real. So full. Junmyeon turns to the screen as well, the hard lines in his face softening as he looks at the two musicians._

_When he turns back to Baekhyun, there is a hope in his eyes Baekhyun hasn’t seen for a long time. Hope and determination. “He’s got star stuff,” Junmyeon tells him, confidence in his voice. “He can make it if he’s given the chance.” Baekhyun internally winces at that. Junmyeon appears not to notice. “We’d like to get him before someone else snatches him up, and you’ve been named the man to do it.”_

_The look on Jummyeon’s face indicates that the conversation is over. Baekhyun can do nothing more than seal his mouth and accept it, or further irritate his manager._

_“And what if he doesn’t want to accept the offer?” Baekhyun asks, not yet taking the folder back from the desk._

_“Well,” Junmyeon says, and sighs as he relaxes a bit. “Then you’ll have to convince him.” His smile is soft and easy, but his eyes are hard. “Convince him, Baekhyun.”_

_Baekhyun’s fingers are white as they grip the folder as he leaves Junmyeon’s office, his mind on a man with relative pitch and a warmth that lasted Baekhyun through every frost._

♭

It’s strange to sit down on the bed now. The frame creaks under his weight, adding to Yixing already sitting and smiling at him. The quilt is threadbare, handmade and crafted with love and care, the stitches and patches worn with age. Sunlight filters in through the window, the lace curtains wafting in the warm summer breeze.

The air in the room isn’t conditioned, and Baekhyun’s collar sticks to his neck, making it hard to breathe.

“So,” Yixing says, sitting close and leaning to him. His eyes are bright, alive and dancing just like his grandmother’s, smile welcoming and happy. “I haven’t seen you in ages. Or heard from you, though I guess you’ve been busy.” Baekhyun swallows and doesn’t move, watching Yixing with his own smile pleasantly fixed on his lips. “What brings you home? Are you staying at your parents house, or did you come see me first?”

He laughs a little, the sound light and amused. It’s still a little shy but spills from him like the creek in the spring after the first thaw.

Wetting his lips, Baekhyun tries to relax. If he looks too stiff, Yixing might worry or question him. Baekhyun isn’t here to freak him out, he’s here for _business_. “I came here first,” he says. “I haven’t really talked to the family in a while.”

Yixing’s eyes widen, and then he’s looking away, smiling still. “So just like old times then,” he says, following up with a laugh and a shake of his head. “You always did just drop in on us, I just didn’t think you’d still be in the habit after everything.” Baekhyun’s fingers itch to fist in the bedspread, watching Yixing. “But I guess even being a big star kind of makes you just as spontaneous still.” Yixing’s smile is still there, though it doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Old habits die hard,” Baekhyun tries, and lets out a softer laugh. Yixing laughs as well, standing and walking to the old beat up guitar in the corner. His grandfather’s. “I see that goes both ways. You’re still making all those videos, right?”

Yixing sits in his desk chair, the wooden legs dragging over the worn floor as he settles down with the guitar resting in his lap. “I got a better camera than what we started with,” Yixing says, fingers immediately falling to brush the nylon strings of the guitar. “And the mics are a lot better. Though I guess they’re all basic compared to what you’ve had for the last few years. The best of the best.” Baekhyun shifts, Yixing’s smile just a bit too sweet on his lips. “I imagine that a lot of things are different with what you’ve been doing. Finally living the dream.”

“Well, I’ve been a bit out of it lately,” Baekhyun says quietly, wanting to pull the topic away from himself. He’s not here to talk about himself, about the fight he had for three years to get in the top spots of music charts. That’s not what he’s here for. He’s here for _‘Lay’_.

“I wondered why I hadn’t heard anything new from you on the radio lately,” Yixing muses softly. His fingers absently strumming the chords of his guitar, plucking familiar progressions that are soft and reminiscent. “I’d recognize your voice anywhere, and I haven’t heard anything since a few years ago. I figured you were just preparing another full length album, after _String of Broken Pearls_.”

Eyes widening a bit, Baekhyun pushes down the shock that blooms in his chest. He laughs instead, trying to dispel some of the tension in his limbs and in Yixing’s face. “Don’t tell me you’re a fan.”

A scoff answers him. “I’ve always been your fan,” Yixing teases him, and it slips back to six years ago. “I told you I’d buy all your albums, but I hope you don’t mind that I didn’t go to your concerts. A bit expensive. And sold out.” His smile is still bright and brilliant as Baekhyun laughs to occupy himself. “Just like you.”

Baekhyun coughs to hide the choke that stoppers his throat. It burns and he has to stand, stepping away to get his breathing back. Yixing’s eyes are still on him, fingers gently plucking the strings to ring softly through the room. “So, Lay,” Baekhyun says, standing.

“I figured after . . .” Yixing’s eyes drop to the bed, where Baekhyun had previously been sitting. “I wanted a new name after it. You know, you had your future and world and I-”

“You’re successful with it,” Baekhyun says, drawing Yixing’s attention back to him. “What? It’s not like you’re easy to ignore. You never have been.” Baekhyun tries to smile, putting on some of the charm that he’s been honing over the years. Childish charm and banter carefully crafted through interviews and coaching sessions. What not to say and how not to act. What is okay and what isn’t.

“I dunno, I was easy to ignore before,” Yixing says, and his voice hurts even as his smile remains happy and bright. Baekhyun isn’t here for this, and he doesn’t want to get into it. This isn’t about before, and Baekhyun internally curses Junmyeon for pushing to send him here.

“You weren’t, you just-” Baekhyun sighs. He doesn’t want to get into this. This isn’t why he’s here. He didn’t come here to heal old wounds, just to do his job. This is _business_. “Lay-”

“Stop calling me that,” Yixing says, and he doesn’t laugh this time, smile faltering. “You know it’s not my name.”

“But it could be,” Baekhyun says, putting strength in his voice. “You could be ‘Lay’, not just from behind a computer screen, but in front of millions. You’ve got the talent for it, the presence, and the charm to be just as big as-”

“I tried it,” Yixing interrupts him, and his smile is gone. “ _We_ tried it, and it just didn’t-”

“I’m talking about now, not then,” Baekhyun cuts him off. Yixing’s lips remain parted, a look of apprehensive confusion spreading over his face. “I came to you before talking to my parents or family because I’m not here to see them. I’m here to see you. To help you.”

“Help me,” Yixing repeats. His fingers have stopped moving over the guitar, the only sound that of the cicadas outside filtering in through the open window. “Baekhyun.”

“I’ve been out of the spotlight for a while now-”

“A year and a half isn’t a while,” Yixing tells him, and his mouth closes, indicative of a frown. “It’s an extended break.”

“-and that’s because I’m not doing it anymore.” Baekhyun can feel his smile tighten, wishing he could relax it but the heat that sticks to his skin and the look Yixing is directing at him make that hard. “I’m working on other things now. Helping people do what I did-”

“Baekhyun.” Yixing’s voice is harder. So are his eyes.

“And I’m here to help you.” Yixing’s mouth presses into thin line, sitting back in the chair, away from Baekhyun. “We can help you.” Yixing doesn’t move, staring at Baekhyun like he doesn’t want him here. “You’re talented, I know you are. _You_ know you are. And right now, where you are, you’re right on the cusp of doing what you’ve always wanted to do.” Yixing stands, lifting his guitar from his lap to place it back on it’s stand in the corner of his room carefully. Baekhyun’s throat tightens. He knew this would happen. “Yixing, we can help you-”

“Baekhyun, stop,” Yixing voice interrupts him quietly. He’s not looking at him, back turned and gaze turned out the window.

Sighing, Baekhyun can feel the tension at being here, at standing here with Yixing and being _back_ beginning to take over. He runs his fingers through his bangs, pushing them off his face. “I know this didn’t work before, that when you auditioned-”

“We,” Yixing’s voice snaps, louder and harder and forcing the words back into Baekhyun’s mouth. Then he sighs, still facing away, and quiets.

“It was harder then,” Baekhyun says, quieter. Junmyeon was wrong. “Look, you’re talented. You’ve always been talented, and before was a hard blow, but you’ve grown so much since then. You have millions of fans, not only here but around the world, and-”

“Baekhyun, stop,” Yixing says, a little louder.

“They want you to succeed, to rise to your potential, and we can do that-”

“ _Baekhyun_ ,” Yixing bites, turning to him. The welcoming expression on his face that had greeted Baekhyun gone. He’s stiff and closed as he looks at him now. “Is that really why you’re here?”

The warm stick of the air isn’t why Baekhyun came back. His belongings are back in a hotel room rented for the week, not the old run down farm house at the edge of town. If it were up to him, Baekhyun never would have crossed the town lines again. Baekhyun is here because he’s been assigned as the prospective manager for the new rising artist ‘Lay.’ Baekhyun is here because he used to know ‘Lay’ before he was ‘Lay’, when they both dreamed of being on the stage together, and the world looked so big and ready for the taking. Baekhyun is here because it’s his job.

“I’m here because I want to see you,” Baekhyun says, his voice flattening into the professional ease that he’s used on sponsors and television show hosts. “I’m here because you have talent, amazing talent, and if you would just let us-”

“Get out.” The look on Yixing’s face is blank, shut down and closed off. He doesn’t smile, nor does he frown, just staring at Baekhyun with sunlight streaming in behind him. The warmth from before has faded from his eyes. “I think it’s time for you to get going, Baekhyun.”

“This isn’t about us, this is about you and your music,” Baekhyun pushes, holding his ground as Yixing frowns. “This is about helping you to-”

“My answer is no, Baekhyun,” Yixing says, louder and speaking over Baekhyun. “I’m glad that you stopped by, and it was good to see you. You can leave now.”

The look on Yixing’s face is one Baekhyun hasn’t seen in a very long time, and he likes it even less when he sees it now. He’s silent as he nods slowly, looking away. Yixing walks him to the door, smiling and exchanging a few word with his mother as they pass by the kitchen, explaining Baekhyun is leaving.

“It was lovely to see you, Baekhyun,” Mrs. Zhang says, smiling at him as she pushes a wrapped piece of cake into his hands. “It’s been so long since we last saw you, and it’s always a pleasure. Are you going to be in town long?”

A look at Yixing’s face indicates he’s not welcome, but Baekhyun smiles at her, accepting the food graciously. “I’m on holiday, so I hope so.” She smiles at him, her eyes just as warm and soft as he remembers. When Baekhyun looks at Yixing, he’s already walking back into the house.

Away and leaving him. It’s almost ironic.

♭

“He said no.”

A loud sigh sounds over the phone receiver. It crackles over the old and outdated telephone in the Inn room, the lights dim and tired in the rented room. “Well, that’s unfortunate.”

“Junmyeon, I’m not the one who should be here doing this,” Baekhyun says, twisting the cord of the phone between his fingers.

“You’re right, you should still be on stage and singing and making my life hell when you spend more time flirting with the stagehands than warming up,” Junmyeon replies easily, and Baekhyun’s grip on the phone tightens. “But that isn’t your job anymore. You’re job right now is to get him under our contract, get him on our side and to make yourself his mentor.”

“He doesn’t want me,” Baekhyun says, frowning at the cozy painting on the wall over the bed. It’s a country scene, just like outside the window of the small Inn. Farm and field and livestock with an open clear sky.

“Well, make him want you,” Junmyeon says, though it sounds more like an order. “You used to be really good at making people want you. You once told me it was your innate talent.”

“Just send someone else,” Baekhyun sighs, closing his eyes and massaging his temple. With his eyes closed, he can see Yixing’s face from earlier today, taught and displeased. He can hear his voice, one that used to comfort him, telling him to get out.

“Baekhyun,” Junmyeon says kindly through the phone. “Do your damn job.”

The line cuts and ends to a dial tone. Baekhyun sighs, leaning back in the generic chair and running his hand over his face in exhaustion. This isn’t going to be easy, and he knows it.

♭

The center of town hasn’t changed much. Only one of the buildings has the windows darkened and empty, everything else is the same as it always was. The same stores that had been there forty years are still there, run by old men or their children. The small shop between the deli and the old second hand bookstore has perfectly cleaned windows. Bending down to see through the glass, Baekhyun squints, trying to see inside the small shop.

A smile spreads over his face and a moment later he pushes open the door, walking in to the sound of the bell over the door. It’s quaint, the small stools scattered here and there and soft music playing through the establishment. The floor is old wood, sounding as Baekhyun walks in, pulling his sunglasses off to look around. It’s cooler inside, the fans spinning lazily on the ceiling and the airconditioner in the window working to regulate the air.

“Good morning!” says the older man behind the counter, leaning over with a smile on his face. “What can I do you for?”

Turning from looking around the shelves of old music and instruments, Baekhyun smiles at the older gentleman. It’s a little funny how so few in this town recognize him. “Actually, I was wondering if-”

“What are you doing here?” Coming up from behind him, Yixing isn’t smiling, instead a frown on his face as he walks to stand behind the counter. He has an old half restored fiddle in his hands, and looks disapproving of Baekhyun being here.

“Now, that’s no way to speak to-”

“I came to see you,” Baekhyun says, smiling and slipping his hands into his pockets. He rocks back on his heels, showing he’s not at all intending to leave or be thrown out. “Say hi.”

“Well, now you’ve seen me and said hi,” Yixing says, carefully putting down the fiddle. “I thought I made it clear the other day what my answer is, Baekhyun.”

“You did,” Baekhyun says, approaching the counter. The shop keeper’s eyes widen, looking between Baekhyun and Yixing with subdued shock. “I heard you.”

“Baekhyun,” the shop’s man says, and his eyes crease at the edges in a wide grin as he looks at him. “I didn’t recognize you all dressed up.”

“I’ve lost all the old denim,” Baekhyun laughs, turning to him with a wide smile. “It’s not such a popular style in the big city.”

“You’re all grown up now,” old Mr. Kim says, his eyes creasing in warmth. “All dressed up and clean like those city folk. We didn’t expect to see you back. Your ma must be happy to have you home.”

Baekhyun’s smile fixes a little, but he nods, leaning against the counter. “Just as she always was to have me around,” he answers. When he glances to Yixing, he sees the familiar expression on his face he’d seen many times before. Vague concern and withheld questioning. “I wanted to see you.” Yixing’s expression darkens again. “To apologize.”

At that, the man before him relaxes, some of the resistance slipping from his stance. Mr. Kim straightens, inclining his head and clearing his throat gruffly. “I’ll be takin’ that fiddle, Zhang,” he says, carefully pulling the fiddle from Yixing, startling him from his staring. “Keep an eye out.” He lets his attention linger on Baekhyun, and Baekhyun nods. He won’t take long.

“I thought they’d want you back at the company,” Yixing comments, turning to the counter and picking up a few boxes. He’s wearing a button down, old and faded gray and rolled up to his elbows. The dark shirt under it is low, and Baekhyun lets himself smile at how the preference hasn’t abated. The smile turns into a soft laugh when he remembers the long listing comments on ‘Lay’s videos about how he never wears proper shirts. Less complaints and more fanatic responses over the teasing glimpses of skin.

“I’m on holiday,” Baekhyun answers with a smile. He leans against the counter, towards Yixing slightly and drums his fingertips against the top, over the smooth worn wood.

“I thought you were here on business,” Yixing says, raising his eyebrows as he glances at Baekhyun. “Are you sure you’re really on holiday?”

“I told your mom when I was leaving the other day,” Baekhyun tells him, straightening up. “Why would I lie to your mother? Or did you just forget?” He lets his tongue slip between his smiling lips, testing the tease.

“I must have missed it,” Yixing says, though he looks less on edge. He moves around behind the counter, picking up a few odds and ends as Baekhyun watches him. “So, did you just come in to see if I was mad at you?”

“Well, that depends,” Baekhyun says, watching Yixing bend down to put things down below the register. “Are you?”

“Am I what?” Yixing asks, voice muffled slightly.

“Mad at me.” Baekhyun is blunt, watching Yixing expectantly as the other man straightens to look at him. “I didn’t come here to make you mad at me, I came here to-”

“I’m not mad at you, Baekhyun,” Yixing says, a sigh in his voice. “I’m a little…”

“Irritated?” Baekhyun prompts, placing his sunglasses on the counter. “Annoyed? Put out? Bothered?”

“Winded,” Yixing cuts him off with a pointed look that melts into a familiar smile. Minimal and just lingering on his lips. It was once Baekhyun’s favorite. He looks up, and finally meets Baekhyun’s eyes. “I didn’t think I’d see you again.”

“I didn’t think I’d ever have blond hair, but look where the world takes us,” Baekhyun tells him, and smiles as Yixing lets out a soft laugh.

“You looked good with it,” Yixing tells him. “It was cute.”

“You sound like my manager,” Baekhyun mumbles, shaking his head. “I looked like a kid with it. Remind me to stick with more normal colors in the future.” Yixing pauses, stopping as he stepped around the counter to turn to him. Baekhyun wets his lips, standing. “I came by today because I wanted to see you, just you, and say I’m sorry.” Yixing’s mouth closes, listening. “For pushing the other day. I came with the offer from JYE and I’d thought you might be interested.”

“I’m not,” Yixing tells him firmly.

“Even though you don’t know what it entails?” Baekhyun tests, raising his brows and Yixing’s look darkens. Baekhyun holds up his hands, stepping back slightly. “Okay, I just wanted-”

“I stopped trying for that world a long time ago,” Yixing says, walking into the shop to put a few things on the shelves, adjusting the instruments on their displays.

“Says the youtube star,” Baekhyun challenges, walking after him, hands settling again into his pockets. He doesn’t have his car keys, having walked into town from the Inn up the high street that morning after breakfast. It was easier than getting stares for the new car and out of state plates. Yixing throws him a look. “What? How many views did you get on your last video? Something like over six digits?”

“How many weeks were you in the top fifteen of the billboard charts?” Yixing tosses back at him and his eyes are sharp. It’s rare to get his look so sharp, and Baekhyun’s mouth curls up at the edges as he nears him. “What have you really been doing these last few years anyway?”

“This is why you should answer phone calls,” Baekhyun tells him, leaning against the wall beside the display case Yixing is pouring over.

“I would,” Yixing tells him, looking back down at his work. Dusting carefully along the smooth instrument faces in delicately crafted wood. “If you ever did actually call.” Baekhyun shifts, gnawing his lip. He’s grateful it’s cooler in the shop, even if he knows the temperature is more for the health of the instruments than people. It helps as his own heat prickles up his neck, skin tingling. Yixing straightens up, pushing his longer hair from his eyes. It’s grown too long, falling into his eyes and hanging over the tops of his ears. “But you’ve been busy. Being famous.”

“It’s a lot of work,” Baekhyun tells him seriously. He watches Yixing’s fingers run the cloth in his hands over the various delicate instruments, cleaning them to perfection with meticulous attention. Always so careful. “They never liked any of the songs I wrote either.”

“That’s because they’re terrible,” Yixing comments, glancing up and his lips tug at the corners.

“I liked them,” Baekhyun says. “But apparently the world isn’t ready for the word ‘yo’ as the main part of a song yet. I’ll have to wait a few more years before I make a stunning comeback and introduce a whole new variety of slang for the modern youth.”

“You’ll be too old for them to think cool then,” Yixing laughs at him, and Baekhyun smiles at the sound.

“Then I guess it’s best that I stopped trying to prove myself against all the new rising stars,” Baekhyun continues. Yixing’s gaze softens as it remains on him. “I’m on holiday right now, but also taking a break. Probably a permanent one from the stage. I’m focusing on behind the scenes work now.”

Carefully, Yixing puts the instruments back in their cases, stepping back with a thoughtful look. “Somehow you behind the scenes doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. You’ve always been too loud to be anything but center stage.” Baekhyun shrugs, saying nothing. Yixing’s brows furrow. “It was always your dream though,” he says, voice slightly distant. “You wanted to be a singer, a big star up on stage and singing to everyone until they couldn’t get your voice out of their head. Singing your songs for days.” Baekhyun’s throat is dry, and he swallows twice. “What happened?”

Shrugging, Baekhyun lets himself tilt, watching his old friend, his old companion. “Things change,” he answers, never looking from Yixing. “People change.” Wetting his lips, he nods to Yixing. “Judging from the popularity of your channel, I’d say your dream has stayed the same though.”

“I love music,” Yixing tells him, turning a bit to look over the shop. “That I always knew would never change. It’s why I keep up the channel. Because I love it.”

“And you’re happy just living here and staying like this?” Baekhyun asks. It’s still there, the way Yixing’s eyes light up when he talks about it, like a whole other part of him ignites into life, burning in him and filling him whole. It’s still in his voice, in his smile, in the way his shoulders straighten. It still flows out of him, that love, that passion, and the sincerity, touching everything around him. Baekhyun suppresses a shiver.

“For now,” Yixing says after a long pause, slowly nodding. “I’m happy now.”

“Being quiet and living at home and recording songs for youtube listeners and looking after old instruments,” Baekhyun continues, watching, waiting. “Doing the same thing, behind a camera lens.” Yixing looks removed, distant and in his thoughts. “You wanted it too, before.” Baekhyun keeps his voice quiet, unassuming. “You wanted to touch others with your music, show them that joy you feel, and spread it as far as you could.” Yixing’s smile has faded, and there is a nostalgia in his eyes now. “Don’t you still want that?”

It is a long silence and wait before Yixing moves at all, and then only a small nod that is indescript. Then his eyes clear, slipping to fix on Baekhyun. “I already told you no.”

“I know,” Baekhyun says, not rushing. Just accepting. “I told you, I’m not here to shove business offers down your throat. Just catching up with you.”

“This feels like a combination of both.” From the back, Mr. Kim is returning, flashing them both a look that Baekhyun knows to mean his time is coming to a close. Yixing doesn’t move, instead only briefly looking to smile at his boss before returning to Baekhyun. “I gave you my answer, and it’s not going to change. I’m not joining a machine that will ruin what I love.”

“Who’s to say it’ll ruin it?” Baekhyun asks, genuinely startled.

“Why else would you have stopped?” Yixing says and turns to walk back behind the counter, inclined towards Mr. Kim. Baekhyun blinks, trying to push down the sting from the comment and not frown. He’s had far worse comments thrown at him over the last few years, some of them from the very man he’s trying to persuade now.

“I’m not here to argue over my own decisions,” Baekhyun says, walking to the door and pausing just inside it. Mr. Kim turns away, showing him his back as Yixing looks at him once more. “But I am going to be around for a while, and I mean it when I say it’s good to see you.” He swallows, looking over Yixing briefly, taking in the few wrinkles in his button down and how his hair could use a trim. “And I hope you believe me when I say I’d like to try to be friends again.”

The air is too old in the shop, making Baekhyun’s throat dry and itch. His hands flex, balling and unballing in his pockets as he watches Yixing and waits for an answer from the man he once shared dreams with. Outside, Baekhyun will have to walk back to the Inn, the heat of the late summer day pressing into his skin. It would be so easy if Yixing just said yes, just agreed and came back with him.

But then, Baekhyun learned a long time ago most of life isn’t easy. Even if he pretends it is.

Mr. Kim edges around the counter, glancing at his employee once and finally Yixing relents, the stiffness in his posture shifting as he lets himself smile. “Okay,” he says at last, and Baekhyun lets out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. “I’d like that, actually.”

“I’m glad,” Baekhyun says, and with a few departing words to meet up later on his ‘holiday’, leaves. It isn’t until he’s in the blinding sunlight, the heavy heat settling into his clothing and sticking to him he realizes the smile on his face.

♭

The innkeepers are people Baekhyun knew when he was younger. Mr. and Mrs. Choi are kind, smiling and warm as they check up on him, serving breakfast and asking him about his day. They had moved to town when Baekhyun was in his later years of high school, taking the old elaborate farmhouse at the top of the high street, renovating it into the inn it currently is.

The door of the room clicks gently as it closes, and Baekhyun almost wishes he could just rest for the evening. The computer and blinking light on his cellphone indicate otherwise.

Junmyeon’s tone when Baekhyun speaks to him definitely indicates that tonight won’t be restful.

“Try harder,” Junmyeon tells him. His tone is clipped, on edge, and Baekhyun knows the sound from numerous occasions when Junmyeon is far too stretched with his own work. “You can’t afford to lose him, Baekhyun.” Baekhyun’s teeth clench at the comment. “He’s your target right now, and considering you’ve been scraping by as you’re shifted into the mentor role, you need someone big and with mounds of potential to get you both on the map again. Lay is that name, that idol, that star.”

“You’re worse at this than Taeyeon was when she first scouted us,” Baekhyun sighs, sitting back in the chair.

“Yeah, well, that’s also why I’m your mentor and Taeyeon isn’t with the company any more,” Junmyeon bites back and Baekhyun allows himself a small smile. “Don’t fuck this up. You have to work at this. Think of it like when Jongdae had nodes.”

“How does that help me?” Baekhyun sighs, pressing the tips of his fingers to massage at his eyes. Dry and tired after a long day. “That whole period was just Jongdae making rude gestures at me to do stuff for him despite how capable he was.”

“And he dedicated himself to recovery so he never had to undergo surgery and had the fastest recoup we’ve ever seen,” Junmyeon retorts. “So work hard at this. You know how to work hard. Trust me, I know. I’ve watched you nearly kill yourself for concerts and performances, so I know you can do this.”

“Oh ye of excessive faith,” Baekhyun hums through the phone. It’s easier to poke fun at Junmyeon and tease him now than to really think about what it is he has to do. It would almost be easier to do another entire concert with a high fever and high dosage of vicodin than do this. That was just one night. This is _much_ longer. The prospect of trying to convince Yixing after his adamant response earlier isn’t appealing, and Baekhyun knows how far that degree of sincerity goes.

Though it does break.

Baekhyun’s skull begins a dull throb of a headache, wincing as his fingers slip to massage at his temples.

“I don’t need faith when I’ve seen you literally get up from a sickbed and dress and walk on stage in front of a million people,” Junmyeon tells him. “You can do this. You just need to work hard.”

“Right,” Baekhyun says bitterly. “Because all that hard work really is paying off right now. When I’m a superstar and at the top of the world.”

“Baekhyun, do you want to be on stage right now?” Junmyeon asks him, voice clipped. They’ve had this conversation before, over and over again, and Baekhyun grimaces now just as he usually does. Junmyeon can’t see him, but it doesn’t matter. “You are where you are right now because you chose it. You told me, and unless you want to backtrack real fast, you’re going to do what your assignment is.”

“Which is ‘Lay’,” Baekhyun sighs. He doesn’t want to fight Junmyeon. He’s fought him on a lot, and fighting is exhausting. Living in his world is exhausting. “This isn’t going to be a slam dunk, Junmyeon.”

“Neither were you,” Junmyeon reminds him. Baekhyun laughs despite himself. “I’ll give you two months, send along some paperwork and small assignments to keep you busy during lulls.”

“Two months to woo Yixing into show business,” Baekhyun muses, opening his eyes. He tilts his head back, taking in the white plaster of the ceiling. “Only two months? And here I was telling everyone I was on holiday and taking a hiatus. Make a liar out of me, why don’t ”

“Two months or I bust your ass for slacking,” Junmyeon tells him decisively. “And remember how much you enjoyed it the last time I came down hard on you?”

The memory is still there, painful and memorable. Baekhyun won’t forget that day, and neither will Junmyeon. “I remember.”

“Good,” Junmyeon says, and then lets out a long sigh. Over the phone it crackles and muffles into the receiver. “Baekhyun?”

“Yeah?”

The plaster on the ceiling is cracked, flaking in places from the past few years even as the rest of the room is in excellent condition. Baekhyun will have to ask Mr. Choi tomorrow if he can extend his stay as a tenant. Moving to another unit doesn’t appeal to him.

“Remember, a lot changes in five years, but dreams are always dreams.”

A soft and slightly sad smile snakes over Baekhyun’s mouth, bitter at the words. “Are you telling me regarding Yixing or yourself, Jummyeon?”

“Don’t fuck this up, is what I’m saying.”

“Have I ever intentionally fucked up things for myself?” Baekhyun asks him and hangs up before Junmyeon can answer him.

Baekhyun has enough regrets without Junmyeon trying to use them against him.

⌚*ﾟ

_There is no sound, only the dull buzzing that fills all the space there is. It’s so loud as he watches lips that he’s memorized to keep him alive. He can’t read them, head buzzing just as bad as his ears as everything numbs. Baekhyun can’t breathe._

_All of their work, all of his work, all of it. For what?_

_There are hands on him. Around his shoulders and someone is tugging him back, holding him upright. Before him, Yixing looks a mix between everything Baekhyun can’t understand. He can’t hear him, can’t read him._

_“What?”_

_They’d come so far, worked so hard, and suddenly when they were put up for it, it just stopped?_

_“Let go,” Yixing’s mouth says. It doesn’t reach his eyes, which look a mix between anger and misery. Baekhyun can’t breathe. He can’t_ breathe. _“Baekhyun, let go of me.”_

_“No!” Baekhyun is being pulled backwards. He can’t really feel anything aside from the hands holding him, the hand in both of his, and the fire in his lungs. “Fucking no!”_

_“Stop,” Yixing tells him, and then turns away. He won’t look at him, and he doesn’t explain why he looks so angry or why he’s on the verge of tears. Baekhyun cries instead, furious tears burning down his face as he glares at Yixing and lets go. He lets go so he can grab him harder, shove him back until Yixing’s back slams to the concrete wall backstage. Off away from the sight of their mentors, their managers and Taeyeon’s voice is shrieking behind him._

_Baekhyun doesn’t care. All he cares about is how Yixing is still not looking at him even as his teeth bare in pain and fury. “I don’t want to stop!” Baekhyun snarls, and alongside the anger is pain, so much pain he chokes. He can’t breathe, he can’t breathe._

_He can’t_ breathe _because Yixing is his air and he’s_ leaving _._

_“Well, I do!” Yixing yells._

_Yixing never yells. Not at Baekhyun and it hits him harder than if Yixing punched him._

_“I don’t want to do this with you anymore, Baekhyun.” When Yixing looks at him, his eyes are cold and hard. Wet, cold and heart. It hurts._

_“With me?” Baekhyun can’t do this alone. He_ won’t _. “We made a fucking promise! It was us together or nothing! You and me, me and you, together. Two man act who sing and love music and make others love it with us. You write the music and I’m your voice and you’re the soul of it. Together! I can’t do this alone! You wanted me to do this with you! This is our dream! We-“_

_“No, Baekhyun.” Yixing shoves him back this time and it is so forceful it knocks Baekhyun off balance. “You wanted this. You have_ always _wanted this This is your dream. To be a singer and sell out and sell yourself like a piece of meat for a bit of praise and spotlight. I don’t want it, not anymore, not like this.” He’s crying, and Baekhyun’s fists shake at his sides as he curls them. His fingernails dig into his palms and break the skin. He can’t breathe, vision blurring into a haze. “I don’t want you anymore.”_

_It cuts through him worse than any other time Baekhyun’s been told that. It hurts more than when it was screamed at him from a hoarse voice slurred from alcohol. It hurts more than when he was pushed back from when he tried to convince himself he was something he isn’t. It hurts more than when he’d been thrown out with next to nothing._

_Barely eighteen and worthless. The only person he went to the warm space in a familiar bed in arms that held him close and whispered promises and his dreams come true. Saying they could do it._

_It hurts because Baekhyun had thought that Yixing wanted him as much as Baekhyun needed and wanted him._

_It hurts because Yixing is the only person Baekhyun has left that he trusted his heart with._

_“Please don’t do this,” Baekhyun’s voice shakes and he doesn’t mean to speak. It’s done though, and the seams begin to crumble away from him when Yixing won’t even look at him._

_Yixing, who always would look for him. Always tell him they could do it, even when Baekhyun came to him broken and bleeding and hating the world. Yixing told him they could do it, that he was safe now. The only man Baekhyun ever really allowed himself to trust and love, who told him he loved him too._

_Baekhyun can’t breathe._

_“Do it yourself,” is the clipped reply. Nothing more._

_“Why?”_

_If there is an answer, Baekhyun never gets to hear it. He watches dumbstruck as the only person that matters to him anymore packs and leaves, never looking back._

_“Baekhyun,” Taeyeon is frantic, her face pleading with him and fussing. She cleans him up with help of the stylists and speaks too fast for Baekhyun to hear her. His head is still spinning when she checks him over, getting him to reply to her when he’s ready to break down. “Baekhyun, you have to go back out there.”_

_“Why?”_

_“Because they want you.”_

_It’s all wrong. All of it is so wrong when he stands and tries to smile and accept the ‘honor’ of being selected as the finalist, given the chance of a lifetime. It’s all wrong, and Baekhyun can’t breathe as sobs choke him in the blinding spotlights._

_He can’t breathe._

_Baekhyun still can’t breathe a month later when the only letter he receives amid the fan-mail and delivered schedules starts with an apology. He screams as he tears it apart. Taeyeon doesn’t tell him goodbye when she leaves, and when Junmyeon walks into his double room that hosts one, Baekhyun is suffocating._

_It’s hard to do it all alone, even if Baekhyun’s hands shook but he stayed anyway because he thought he could. It’s all too much to feel this worthless all over again. The last few weeks have been a beating, and it’s been pure determination that have him here._

_For a dream,_ his _dream. To be here, to stay on stage after the soul behind his music abandoned him._

_He stayed and grit his teeth and fought through the final steps and has spent the last few weeks singing until his voice is raw and aching. Exhaustion so deep in him when he can’t sleep._

_Sleep is hard when the silence of the room digs into the emptiness in his chest._

_“Get up,” Junmyeon says, looking down at him with an imposing expression that hasn’t been perfected yet._

_Baekhyun is still struggling to breathe when he steps on an empty stage for the first time. After the first letter, there were no more. There were never any that Baekhyun sent, and his phone number has been changed for security too many times to keep track. Or check._

_Looking into the crowd of expectant faces ready to judge him and tear him down or scream his name, Baekhyun fills his lungs for the first time in months. He closes his eyes before the starting note, and clings to that dream._

_It’s all he has left, and he’ll be damned if he doesn’t hold on as long as he can._

⌚*ﾟ

_”Do you want to talk to him?” The phone held out to him is not his own. The charm dangling from it is a pokemon Baekhyun only knows about because Junmyeon finally caved after Baekhyun pestered him and told him about his ‘small hobby.’ Junmyeon’s smile towards him is mediating, asking him to please be an adult and talk to his ex. Ex… many things. “It might be good for you.”_

_“For me or for him to be on good terms with me now I’m famous,” Baekhyun bites back, and Junmyeon’s smile falters._

_“He worked just as hard as you did, and sacrificed just as much, if not more.”_

_“No,” Baekhyun says, turning away from the phone and his manager. He frowns, biting down the slew of anger that burgeons at the back of his throat. Two weeks ago he stopped being a teenager and celebrated with people who didn’t give a fuck about him. Just his name. He’s so tired of it, of being a commodity to be sold when he just wanted… “He didn’t.”_

_Turning away and back to the new sheet music delivered that morning along with another packed schedule for the week, he hears Junmyeon on his phone. “He’s a bit busy now, but he says hi.”_

_It’s hours later when the resolution and patience snaps. “Why do you always do that?”_

_“Do what?” Junmyeon doesn’t even look up, glasses on his nose and dressed twenty years older than he is. Baekhyun once thought it was outdated until he saw how differently people treated Junmyeon because he doesn’t just wear the clothing. He wears the respect associated with it._

_“Tell him I give a fuck?”_

_Junmyeon looks up at him, that bored impassive older than his years expression on his face. “Because you do.” Opening his mouth to argue, Baekhyun is cut off when Junmyeon throws a packet of Thermaflu at him. “Drink that before you make yourself sick again.”_

_“I can take care of myself.”_

_The smile Junmyeon gives him isn’t patronizing. It’s sad and unguarded and reminds Baekhyun so much of home he feels stiff. He leaves before Junmyeon can put his mask back on. Before he remembers that Junmyeon can read him better than he can read himself sometimes._

♭

Mr. Choi doesn’t let him keep the room. Instead, he works out an agreement with Baekhyun to live in a small extra unit out back and pay half of his rent with help around the inn. “Nothing big,” he’d said with a smile, the lines in his face deepening. “Just stuff to help out. Getting old has its disadvantages.” The new unit is nice, a refurbished small garage unit that is similar to a little cottage. It’s quiet, and the air is surprisingly cool and dry as Baekhyun unpacks, despite how short the airconditioner has been running.

The nicest thing about Mr. and Mrs. Choi is that they don’t ask why Baekhyun isn’t staying with his family. The Byun’s are known around town, always have been, and it’s not like they wouldn’t have room for him. Regardless, Baekhyun is grateful they don’t push him, and they smile when he explains what he’s been doing. It’s easier to talk to them somehow, the stories from the last few years flowing out of him over breakfasts.

The small unit has a mini kitchen installed, and Baekhyun spends his first day in the unit stocking himself for the week. He smiles a little ruefully as he puts items in the fridge, remembering when once all he had in his fridge was alcohol. Restocking offers him a great opportunity to visit around town, and he’s greeted with a smile when he drops by the Zhang’s for produce.

“I didn’t know you were still in town, Baekhyun,” Yixing’s grandmother says, letting him into the kitchen and immediately directing him into a chair. “We thought you were just by for a visit.”

“An extended stay,” Baekhyun tells her. He can’t help but smile when she pushes a fresh glass of lemonade at him, giving him a wink. “I needed a break after a few things back in the big world, and decided I’d take some time to recover at home.”

“There is nothing like sleeping where your roots are,” she says, warm and smiling. Baekhyun smiles back, mostly because her kindness has always warmed him. She never asked when he’d show up at the table for breakfast when he was a kid when he hadn’t been there for dinner. She just smiled at him then like she does now. “Everyone needs a little vacation every now and then.”

Leaving the house with eggs from the henhouse out back and milk from the cows kept in the pasture outside of the farmhouse, Baekhyun takes with him information. Mostly about what’s going on with Yixing and the rest of those in town. Just like her grandson, Yixing’s grandmother was excellent at spilling secrets of other people. It’s not that she runs her mouth, but that somehow sharing about people never is harmful in her eyes.

It’s been years since Baekhyun left, and apparently many others did too, but some are still here. His senior in high school, Minseok, is now teaching there, in charge of his own group of fledglings at the elementary school. It suits him, and Baekhyun imagines he’ll have to check up on him. It’s easiest to get in contact with Jongin and Sehun, who have somehow managed to open up a sort of computer consulting company downtown.

“Holy shit, you are home!” Sehun half yells through the store when Baekhyun walks in. The small corner shop that’s mostly filled with electronics, which is ironic to Baekhyun considering the last he knew, neither of the boys behind the counter were particularly skilled with them. Especially Jongin, who could barely turn on the television for his favorite animes. “Damn, I thought for sure Yixing was bluffing when he said you were back but apparently the poor guy was telling the truth.”

Baekhyun does a good job of not letting his smile slip. Years of practice has made it easy to smile even when he doesn’t want to. “You make it sound like you’re not happy to see me,” Baekhyun says, walking to the counter. Sehun is, somehow, taller than the last time Baekhyun saw him. Taller than Jongin, at least. Jongin himself looks just as he did before, though with a little less youth clinging to his face. Sehun just got more angular and intense in the face.

“Of course we’re happy to see you, Baekhyun,” Jongin says, smiling sweetly at him as Sehun grins widely.

“It was so quiet and boring here without you for the last, what? Five years?” Sehun’s grin widens so that his eyes turn up into cute crescents. “Good to have you back. We needed you. This town isn’t as interesting without you convincing us that putting Mr. Lee’s cows on the firehouse is a great idea.”

Baekhyun laughs, startled as he remembers the prank. He’s still chuckling when a woman emerges from the back, shaking her head with a humored expression. “I still can’t believe you didn’t get arrested for that.”

“The police like me here,” Baekhyun tells her with a fond smile.

“Apparently the police like you everywhere,” Amber tells him, cocking her eyebrow as she shoves Sehun out of the way to get to the phone. “Considering we haven’t heard of you getting arrested since you left us.”

“I’m just charming. How else would you have put up with me all those years? Unless it’s because you think I’m so damn cute” Baekhyun tells her, leaning over the counter. Amber rolls her eyes at him even as Jongin flashes him a smile behind her, Sehun covering his mouth to hide his laughter.

“Cute is used loosely by you to encompass a great deal of annoying traits,” Amber says, and Baekhyun ducks to avoid getting his hair ruffled by her.

It makes more sense how Jongin and Sehun are down here if Amber is the one who is leading the business. Both of them somehow have managed to keep up most of the same gang as the old days, as well as bringing in their own. Most have moved away, like Baekhyun did, but a lot of the old names are still around. Sehun ends up being the one to invite Baekhyun to drinks that night, as is tradition for Thursdays apparently, down at the local tavern.

It isn’t until Baekhyun is seated at the bar, squished between Jongin and Sehun, that he realizes who’s behind the bar. “I never thought I’d see you here again,” he says, grinning over the bar top at a face that barely looks legal. “I thought you had forsaken this place.”

“I thought you did too, but yet here you sit, in the flesh,” Lu Han fires back, a slightly slanted smile snaking over his mouth as he fills up another glass. “Are you visiting or did you finally get booted off all those terrible variety shows?”

“They couldn’t handle me,” Baekhyun says. Tapping at the counter with his fingernails, he takes in his old friend. Lu Han had left town a year before Baekhyun had. He’d had a similar goal as Yixing and Baekhyun had, but a lot more drive. It probably was a bit more necessary in the athletics world. Baekhyun remembers watching his first games, the debut star player on the team fresh out of being scouted from high school, looking wild and free and happy. “What about you?”

“I’m in hiding,” Lu Han says, sliding a beer to Baekhyun with a wink. “Secret protection agency. Figured the last place they’d look for me is where I came from. It’s a perfect diversion.”

“What Lu Han means to say is that he quit,” Jongin adds, leaning into Baekhyun’s side and throwing Lu Han a look. Lu Han’s grin only widens.

“Then he came home and slept on my couch and is still there,” Sehun adds and flicks bits of torn napkin at his best friend. “You could at least pay rent, you know.”

“I thought you told me my company was all the payment you needed,” Lu Han says, raising his eyebrows high as he looks at Sehun in mock hurt. “Sehun, I thought what we have ran deeper than money.”

“Sehun’s bank account isn’t as big as his heart,” says a familiar voice and Baekhyun turns immediately, forsaking the conversation sprawling before him. “Still around?”

“I told you I wasn’t going anywhere for a while.” Baekhyun leans back, into Jongin and opening the space beside him for Yixing to slip in. The bar is loud and the lights dim, but he can still see the soft highlights in Yixing’s hair and the tired lines around his eyes from a long day. “What, did you think you could get rid of me that easily?”

“It worked before,” Yixing says simply as he takes the opening. Just as before, Baekhyun’s smile slips. It’s disconcerting, considering Junmyeon had literally kept him up for weeks to learn how to properly control his expression. Yet just one word from Yixing and it cracks.

A liability.

“Stop being a bitter shit head and have a drink,” Lu Han cuts in, sliding a beer to Yixing. He gives Yixing a look that is too quick for Baekhyun to catch and leaves him watching Yixing keenly, waiting for him. Then Lu Han is turning to Baekhyun and leaning in, one of his easy smiles on his face. “Don’t mind him, he’s just had a long day with a fiddle bow up his ass.”

“Ow,” Jongin says, wincing as he leans away. It surprises a laugh out of Yixing, and Baekhyun lets out a breath as he watches him relax, settling beside him. “Why do you stay there if-“

“Because I like it there,” Yixing tells him simply, cutting him off before his eyes flicker to Baekhyun. “I like being here.”

“You hate being here,” Lu Han interrupts, pulling away to go to other patrons down the bar. “You complain about it to me whenever I see you,” he calls as he walks away.

“Then why would I still be here to complain?” Yixing calls after Lu Han, getting no response.

It leaves Baekhyun to stare at Yixing, taking in the fixed expression on his face and how he won’t look at him. Beside Yixing, Sehun is already talking with Amber, avidly discussing something. Jongin is involved with nursing whatever it is Lu Han gave him. It leaves them in a small pocket of space, with the noise of the bar hanging over them as Baekhyun looks at Yixing expectantly and Yixing refuses to meet his eyes.

Baekhyun looks away first, taking a sip of his drink. “Long day?”

“It could have been longer,” Yixing admits, and it’s quiet under the hum of conversation at the bar. “How long are you going to be here?”

“Ready to get rid of me so quickly?” Baekhyun asks, a teasing smile to his lips as he watches Yixing carefully for his reaction.

Yixing glances at him from the side, his tongue poking out to wet his lips as his brow furrows slightly. “I just-“

“I told you, I’m on a break,” Baekhyun tells him, hardening his voice. He doesn’t want Yixing on his guard the entire time Baekhyun is around him. And Baekhyun plans on being around Yixing a lot if he can manage it. “Taking a holiday to get away from things. You told me your answer and I’m listening to it, so you can stop the whole defensive dance around me like I’m about to proposition you or something.”

When Baekhyun pauses for a breath, Yixing has turned to him, facing him fully. His eyes are slightly wide, like he can’t believe Baekhyun is speaking to him so frankly, like he didn’t expect him at all the way that he is. There’s still a lot of doubt swimming in his eyes, but Baekhyun pushes on, the others still distracted enough to give him space.

“I know you think I’m here to get something from you, but I’m not,” Baekhyun continues, and it digs into him. It’s been a long time that it bothered him to lie like this. Though he’s not entirely lying. He isn’t here to specifically get something from Yixing, more of persuade him. To help both of them, really. “I’m just here because I want to be. I thought we could be friends, like I proposed before.”

“We can,” Yixing says, a little too fast. He’s frowning, like he’s not sure what to make of Baekhyun, torn between his words and his own thoughts.

“Good,” Baekhyun says, and lets himself lean a little closer. It’s just a gesture, trying to eliminate the distance between them that spans five years, but it still makes his skin prickle. “Then can we drop it? I don’t want every conversation with you to be a game of finding out your trigger. And _if_ you happen to change your mind, I’ll be here and ready to help, but that’s not the reason I’m staying.”

“But it’s the reason you came,” Yixing says.

“Not the only reason,” Baekhyun says definitively, and takes a drink. “Not everything is black and white, and maybe I just missed you.” He eases a smile over his lips, the old teasing look on his face slipping on easier than it has in a while.

Through the evening, Yixing continues to keep an eye on him, attention slipping to him as if checking him or trying to pick through his words. Baekhyun smiles through it, slipping easily into the crowd atmosphere and chatting, laughing, joking loudly. He ends up leaning heavily on Jongin, listening to the younger man scold Sehun for being reckless with his liquor.

The topic isn’t brought up again, even as Yixing’s tongue is loosened by the liquor he still can’t hold and his hands slip with his balance. He doesn’t talk about it, and slowly Baekhyun’s breath comes a little easier when he finally gets one of those smiles that isn’t hidden behind layers of skepticism and protective barriers.

It warms pleasantly with the alcohol in his system that Lu Han keeps in easy supply.

♭

It’s not a bad gig to get paid through hospitality, where Baekhyun doing a few household things gets him a room. It’s so quiet out here, and Baekhyun is almost used to the late heat as he spends most of the day outside in it. The whole pace of the world just slows down, mixed into simple tasks and errands. There aren’t hasty last minute deadlines that keep him up, only the gentle sound of crickets outside his windows.

“You look almost like you’re back to your old self,” Mr. Choi comments when Baekhyun strolls in from downtown in the afternoon. He’s dressed down, all of his more ‘stylized’ clothing back in his flat in the city. His apartment is being looked after by Kyungsoo, who Baekhyun trusts far more than he trusts Jongdae.

“Except more handsome,” Baekhyun says with a cheeky smile that Mr. Choi ends up laughing at. There is a workspace that he set up a few days ago, fixed with his laptop. Sighing and shaking his fingers through his bangs, he drops a package of documents from Junmyeon beside his computer before picking up his phone.

“Do you have news for me or are you just suffocated by small town life?”

“Both,” Baekhyun says, sitting down at his desk. He’s still not in favor of how the sweat sticks to his neck, prickling along his skin. He liked it better when he didn’t notice it, when his body just naturally traveled with the seasons or just existed in one temperature set unless on stage. “I got your package.”

“Oh good,” Junmyeon says. “How’s Lay?”

“Alive,” Baekhyun muses, flipping open his computer. “He lets me talk to him now. Sometime maybe he’ll even talk back so we can have a real person conversation. I’m hoping that soon we can even progress to such topics as the weather and hold hands. Like real friends.”

“Baekhyun.”

“He’s fine, I’m working on it.” Swallowing down the dryness in his throat, Baekhyun carefully opens the package. Inside are a variety of papers, most of it filing and reference based for some of the trainees under the mentors like himself. “Two months, right?”

“Two months,” Junmyeon confirms. “I sent you Joy’s stuff, by the way.”

“Joy?” Baekhyun looks over her file, the cute young girl smiling back from her photographs. She’s pretty. “One of your children?”

“Funny.” Junmyeon has always been a champion at sounding humorless. “She’s one of yours actually. Considering how you were actually successful with Hwasa and gave you Yixing, we wanted to keep you up to date. Joy is one of the newest additions. I need you to run up schedules for her. She’ll be starting officially around the time you come back, your dual protégé with Chanyeol, who’s with her for now.” Baekhyun nods even though he knows Junmyeon can’t see him. “You should call Soojung.”

Slowly, Baekhyun puts down the papers so he doesn’t harm them before he sits back, frowning. “Why?”

“Because it would be appropriate.”

“It would be appropriate if rap music didn’t use profanity, but look at the top ten lists,” Baekhyun fires back. “I’m busy.”

“You’re on supposed vacation,” Junmyeon laughs at him, for once the only one finding something funny. “You should call her. Invite her out to come visit you, maybe. It might help.”

“Why would that help?” Baekhyun doesn’t like it. He saw Soojung before he came out here, explained to her briefly that he had to be away for a while. She’s busy, with her own schedule and work. She doesn’t have time to come out to his bumfuck nowhere hometown just because it’s _’appropriate’_. “I don’t want to waste her time. There is literally no reason for her to come out here and visit me.”

“I can think of a lot of reasons,” is the casual reply but Baekhyun bristles anyway. “Most of them-“

“When do you need the paperwork back?” Baekhyun asks him instead, cutting him off of the topic.

“Next Monday,” Junmyeon tells him easily. “You can fax them over.”

The phone call leaves Baekhyun tired and worn. He’ll have to go downtown to talk to Sehun and Jongin about faxing, considering he’s not sure where he could get a fax from here. It’s a town that’s ten years behind the rest of the world, the concept of wifi still new and different in most public venues. People still don’t lock their houses and Baekhyun still feels displaced when people ask him about how his brother is doing.

It reminds him why he left, why he spent most of his nights away, thinking of a world away from it all where he didn’t need to be afraid of going home. It’s strange being here, back where he’d been stuck for so much of his young life wanting to get out. Now back, and he’s almost doing exactly the same, staying away from a place that has been labeled as home.

Closing his eyes, he puts on music from his computer. It’s mostly a compilation of his own stuff and the others from the company. Singing along, it helps clear his head, playing with his voice and the lyrics and imagining the irritated glares from Jongdae and Junmyeon’s hidden amusement.

It’s been a long time since he could just sing because he wanted to, without a schedule or a need to save his voice. Without the need and demand of warming up before he does so. It has Baekhyun closing his eyes, if only for a moment, just enjoying and letting the sound of his own voice wrap around him, feeling it in his body. It’s changed so much in just a few years, the old outdated videos in the depths of the internet from his earlier days reflecting as much.

Junmyeon would frown at him, for fooling around more than actually singing, playing with his voice rather than perfecting it. But Junmyeon isn’t here, and-

Baekhyun jumps at the sudden knock on the door. Turning, he walks over, glancing at the window for a familiar face. The door to the unit doesn’t have a screen, but the peephole has Baekhyun raising his eyebrows in surprise. “I thought you would never visit,” he says, grinning wide and opening the door. “To what do I owe the honor of the town’s celebrity?”

“I’m pretty sure you’re the celebrity in this town, not me,” Yixing says, throwing him a poorly masked look of amusement. “You’re name is far more well know. I only make the arts page of the local paper every now and then.”

“Well, headlines may look big and interesting, but I always preferred reading the arts page,” Baekhyun tells him, smiling warmly. Stepping back, he welcomes Yixing inside, only relaxing when Yixing has stepped in. “You know, I got the impression from the last time we talked that it would be a while before I saw you again. Did you really miss me that much that you couldn’t stay away?”

It’s cheeky, but Baekhyun’s always been good at cheeky. It always gets him a few laughs and rolled eyes, and it’s so ingrained in him after years of bright lights and interviews. It still gets a soft smile from Yixing, much softer than all of his previous.

“You’re pretty hard to find, actually,” Yixing says, and takes in the small unit. “I thought you might be at home and went looking there first but you weren’t there.“

A chill sweeps through Baekhyun, nearly tearing his smile off. He holds on, instead walking to the small kitchen and beginning to put together drinks. Filling water glasses he pushes down the unease in his stomach. “Why would I be home? I didn’t come back to go back there.” He closes his eyes briefly, breathing in to steady himself before turning, a wide smile on his face. “I came back to see you.”

“I thought you came back on a vacation,” Yixing quips and a smile tugs at his lips.

“I came back to go on vacation in a charming town _and_ because I wanted to see you,” Baekhyun amends, grabbing a few lemons from the counter. “I didn’t come back to go home.” Baekhyun swallows. “You know I swore to never go back there after I left. That much has not changed about me.”

When he meets Yixing’s eyes, handing him a lemon water, Yixing is looking at him thoughtfully, almost sadly. “They were surprised when I mentioned your name,” he says, his voice softer than before. “They didn’t know you were here.”

“You told them?” Baekhyun asks. He keeps his eyes on the lemon water in his hands, focusing on the cool glass under his fingers.

“No,” Yixing says just as soft but with a bit of the kindness from long ago. When Baekhyun looks up, he’s watching him, neither smiling nor frowning. “I didn’t tell them.” Baekhyun swallows down the tightness in his throat. “But if you’re going to be here for a while, they’ll find out sooner rather than later.”

“I’m not here to see them,” Baekhyun says finitely, stepping from the kitchen. He gestures to one of the small chairs in his kitchenette, and Yixing takes it. “It’s not like they want me home anyway.”

“People change,” Yixing says gently and Baekhyun lets out a harsh laugh. “No, I’m serious, Baekhyun. Look at yourself. Five years ago you wanted to do nothing but sing and now you’re out making that dream come true for other people rather than yourself.”

“I still sing,” Baekhyun tells him before taking a sip of his water.

A soft smile spreads over Yixing’s face, just lighting in his eyes so they glint. “I know,” he says and steps to take the chair opposite. “I could hear you when I was walking up. You sound just as good as you did before.”

“I’m insulted,” Baekhyun says, leaning back and settling. He likes this area, where they’re not talking about his family and instead talking about things familiar, safe. “I know for a fact that I sound better than when we were back singing covers of new releases on your bed for a camcorder. I have the ratings to prove it.”

Yixing laughs at that, lighter and fuller, his eyes dancing in a way that makes Baekhyun nostalgic. Nostalgic for when them together wasn’t a surprise, when it was expected. The old days, when Baekhyun would wander from across town, keeping his breaths even and climb through Yixing’s bedroom window. The days when Yixing would look up from his guitar or school books or old desktop computer and smile, never surprised, as he pulled Baekhyun into his arms and chased the nightmares away.

Nostalgia for when it was all softer, quieter, and hopeful, when they were too young to understand how the world worked outside of this small town. When the only demons Baekhyun had was the disapproving looks of his family, the screams and the shatters that drove him out of the house. The foul breath that spread over his face when his father confronted his ‘antics’ and spit how disgusting he was, how he couldn’t stand to have such a ‘disgrace for a son’ under his roof.

The ice in the water class clinks gently as it melts, drawing Baekhyun’s attention back to it. He wets his lips, looking up and catching Yixing watching him. There’s a sort of worried sympathy on his face, and Baekhyun coughs out a laugh. He’s not been back for a while, and somehow while it was easy to ignore his home when he was hundreds of miles away, just being here makes it all far more persistent at the back of his mind.

“Sorry,” Baekhyun says, smiling and standing up. He needs to move, to get his body in action try to bleed out the thoughts still stuck in his mind. “So, what brings you to come and find me? Did you really miss me that much? I’d say I’m surprised, but…”

The scoff isn’t unexpected, but it makes Baekhyun smile anyway, finding comfort in the old habits that they seem to slip into so easily. “I’m glad to know your self esteem hasn’t taken a hit by being knocked off the stage.”

“I wasn’t knocked off, I graciously stepped down and let another take the spotlight for me,” Baekhyun corrects, sitting down finally on the bed. He’s still facing Yixing, and it’s more natural somehow. Baekhyun sitting on the bed and watching Yixing and his almost perfect posture. That also hasn’t changed. The differences now are that the bed isn’t Yixing’s with its soft handmade quilt, and Baekhyun isn’t wearing his favorite oversized leather jacket and avoiding his homework, among other things.

“So no actual blows to the ego,” Yixing concludes, and the smile still lingers about his mouth.

“I like what I’m doing now,” Baekhyun tells him. He does, in his own way.

There are things he misses, like the rush of the stage and the chaos of screaming voices all singing along with him, _for_ him. He misses having the freedom that he only felt on the stage. But he doesn’t miss other the things, being chased around constantly by photographers, the parties that just ended sour on his tongue and people who wanted to use him. He doesn’t miss the lying, the throwing up from stress, being unable to breathe from fear that something as simple as a kiss he actually enjoyed painting his name in red.

“I never said you didn’t,” Yixing says, and sighs. “I guess I just remember a different version of you. One that I thought I knew better. I suppose you’ve changed more than I thought.”

“It’s still me,” Baekhyun tells him, feeling a pang at the comment that he doesn’t want to place. “I haven’t changed that much, I just went away for a while, and have better skin.” Yixing lets out a soft chuckle. “I’m still the same guy who would sing the higher harmonies with you in front of a camcorder and made sure we had mustaches for every Friday night video post.” Yixing is full on laughing now, setting his lemon water down so as not to spill it. Baekhyun smiles, watching him and feeling warm to see him like this again. “That much hasn’t changed.”

“I still can’t believe we did that,” Yixing laughs, his eyes bright and dancing as they look at him. Warm and with his walls down, once more speaking of the only home Baekhyun missed in the last five years.

He smiles.

“We got the highest views on those videos, everyone loved them,” Baekhyun reminds. “Do you remember the one where we filmed in the chicken house with the theme of how we could put the hens to sleep?” Yixing is laughing completely, leaned back in the chair and the sound is stunning. Baehkyun’s smile widens. “Or when we dressed up as Tom Sawyer and Becky Thatcher for the school festival’s live talent portion?”

“And you hit on Minseok who didn’t recognize you in the wig for at least ten minutes,” Yixing speaks through his laughing. “I swear to God, he was never the same after that.”

“Well, I did sit on him and ask if he’d help me with my garters,” Baekhyun concedes and Yixing laughs again, both dimples pressing deep into his cheeks. He’s grown up, so much of him more comfortable in his body, filled out and strong and yet still so soft, the fullness of his lips and the gentle warmth of his eyes. In his laugh.

“I swear, this town has never seen anything like you before,” Yixing calms enough to say, slumping slightly in his chair. “I don’t think it ever will again.” Baekhyun smiles, real and genuine, ducking to look down into his lemon water. It’s warm, the feeling washing into him.

“Well, I suppose I am pretty unique.”

“You’re once in a lifetime,” Yixing murmurs. Baekhyun looks up, but Yixing is looking out the window of the unit, a small thoughtful smile on his face.

It’s like being thrown back in time. Sprawled on a bed and watching as the light plays over Yixing’s figure, seated opposite him, just enough away that Baekhyun can’t quite reach out and have him. But the feeling in the room is the same, where the silence between them isn’t uncomfortable and Baekhyun isn’t itching to fill it, to bring in sound to cover himself up.

It curls warm in his chest, and he finds himself letting out a soft breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. Watching the sun filter in, just barely tickling at Yixing’s feet as it creeps in, Baekhyun swallows down a surge of sadness. It happens every now and then, where he remembers this feeling, this comfort and misses it, remembers when it stopped.

“I’m not sure if that is a good or a bad thing,” he says softly, under his breath, a part of him hoping that Yixing won’t hear it. The other part of him, the one that watched him let Yixing go five years ago and wanted to scream at him to come back, hopes he hears it.

“Both,” Yixing says, still looking out the window, though his smile looks a little sadder. He turns, and the sadness fades away, shadowed in his eyes. “You leave an impression on people.”

“So I’m a stain,” Baekhyun says. As soon as the word passes his lips, the old twist of it sinks into him harshly. _Tainted_ and _dirty_ dig cruelly where he’d forgotten about them for so long. They’re sharper here, where he’s so close to those memories that had seemed so far away when he couldn't see his past living before him.

“No,” Yixing says, and his voice is harder, more insistent. Looking up, his expression mimics it. Suddenly, Baekhyun is eighteen again, his breath caught and choking him as he looks at Yixing with that same expression on his face. Except the side of Baekhyun’s neck isn’t purpling with bruises and he is shaking from the remnants of panic. Yixing’s eyes are just as hard, boring into him as his mouth presses into a line of seriousness, making sure Baekhyun listens to him. “You aren’t.”

Baekhyun is twenty-two again, seated on his bed and feeling stiff as he blinks at Yixing and the phantom panic that had gripped around him. The same phantom panic that lingered around the edges of his mind when he stepped out of his car a week or so ago, that has his breathing stilted now.

He’s safe, and he doesn’t have to go home after he sees Yixing. He never has to go home again. Long ago the only home that mattered to him was the one where Yixing was, where he pressed a soft reassurance into Baekhyun’s temple with his lips and calmed the shaking with a gentle hold.

Once, Yixing had been his home. The soft place for him to fall and know he would be loved.

Once is a time he doesn’t have now, and it’s what’s kept him up some nights wishing he still did.

It’s what has him sitting now, fingers wrapped around his chilled glass, feeling the air tighten in his throat and hard to breathe.

“I wanted to see if you would be interested in visiting the school later this week,” Yixing says, pulling Baekhyun from his thoughts. Looking up, Yixing is biting his lip, looking displaced. At Baekhyun’s look, he inhales deeply and sits up a bit straighter. “That’s why I came by. I was going to go do a guesting for Minseok’s class and help out Ryeowook with his fifth graders.” A ghost of a smile passes over his lips. “They’re learning the recorder at the moment.”

“I see,” Baekhyun says hollowly. Catching Yixing’s careful examining gaze, he pushes back the tremor he can feel beginning in his hands, setting the drink aside. He smiles. “And here I was just thinking you’d come to see me.”

“If I had come just to see you, I’d have followed tradition and climbed through your window at close to midnight,” Yixing tells him, and it’s so familiar and teasing it makes Baekhyun ache.

“Don’t go getting my hopes up,” he says, widening his smile so his eyes can’t be seen and looking away before the slight surprise in Yixing’s eyes means more to him. He’s here for business, to slowly coax Yixing into joining the company and coming under his mentorship. “What day should I swing by the school? Or did you want us to host a mini concert like we used to back in the day? Maybe get a sing a-long going?”

“I don’t know if our school district can afford to have your talent,” Yixing says. “All famous and in hiding. On hiatus.”

“I never said I don’t do charity events,” Baekhyun says, standing to place his glass in the sink. Moving to get the rising tremors that snake up his skin to quiet, to distract himself from the brief crash back into memory. He turns back to Yixing smiling at him in that old warmth that has haunted him. It’s so close, and Baekhyun itches to reach out and take it like he once knew he could.

Yet Baekhyun’s hands remain at his sides, kept to himself as he and Yixing set up the details of the visit. He keeps them curled together in his lap as he and Yixing discuss a set list, and waves them both when Yixing leaves, smiling wide enough to make his face hurt.

The shaking only subsides when Baekhyun is under the cold water of the shower, eyes closed and facing the spray as it rains down on his face. It’s been years since he was put so on edge, the control over the old panic so compromised he shook. He’d learned to cope with it time and time again on his own. Hands braced hard against the wall of the shower before him, he breathes in and out, reminding himself he doesn’t have to be afraid anymore.

That he was never dirty to begin with.

Wincing and biting his lip so hard it nearly bleeds, the words once more echo in his head in the same voice as had filled the unit before. Soft and gentle as a kiss and whispering with love he let himself lose all those years ago.

The only thing he ever gave up that he wished he hadn’t, wondering if he could ever get it back.

♭

It’s a little strange how easily Baekhyun finds himself settling in the life of the small town. Between running errands and filling out the work that Junmyeon sends him, Baekhyun’s world becomes so much smaller and simpler. It’s easy for him to slip into the flow of it, the gradual pace of catching up with Sehun and Jongin as he negotiates faxing documents back to Junmyeon. Easy to catch up with Jinri and Lu Han at the bar when he gets pulled along in the evenings.

A celebratory drink after a successful mini concert at the school.

That had been fun. The day surrounded by little first graders, none of whom knew remotely who he was, and were all more intent on talking about how soft his hair looked. Minseok had been quiet, watching his class with a smile and a kid in his lap. He and Yixing had met once before, and while singing in Yixing’s old room had brought the bite of memory to the back of his throat, performing for a group of kids was entirely different.

“You looked so happy,” Yixing says, nudging into his side with a smile and a beer in hand. They’re back at the local bar, Jinri on duty tonight with Lu Han, and Yixing had bought him his first drink as thanks for helping with the small show.

“When?” Baekhyun asks, leaning against the bar easily. He can breathe easier now, the familiar happy hum under his skin. “In Minseok’s classroom or when we had about thirty little nuggets all trying to prove they could blow their recorder the strongest?”

Yixing laughs, his face lighting up as he fits himself beside Baekhyun. Like he belongs there. As if they’d never had a distance between them. “I meant when you were singing,” Yixing says. The dim lights make his eyes shine. “You looked so happy, like a whole other part of you had come to life.”

“That’s called being awake,” Baekhyun tells him. “You should try it some time. You know, when you open your eyes and remain in the present.” Baekhyun opens his eyes wide and pulls an exaggerated face. Yixing scrunches up his nose and jabs him in the side and Baekhyun flinches away, laughing. “It was fun today.”

“Of course it was fun,” Yixing tells him, eyebrows raised and leaning in so their shoulders bump. “We were doing what we love.”

“What you love,” Baekhyun says with a briefly quirked brow. He raises his own beer for a drink.

“You love it too,” Yixing says, leaning back and bracing his elbows on the bar top. He looks over, his eyes briefly raking up and down Baekhyun in an almost evaluating manner. “Having an audience and them loving you. Demanding for more and basking in what you do. You’re infectious, I could practically feel your happiness next to me.”

Baekhyun clears his throat, looking away from Yixing. The other man is leaned back, stretched out so his body extends in a poorly guised display. He’s in a tank again, hanging loose and showing too much skin, his button down ‘proper attire’ abandoned once they’d stepped off the school property. “See? This is why you forgot the bridge to your own song,” Baekhyun comments, keeping his eyes from lingering.

“I didn’t forget,” Yixing says, and there’s a note of hurt in his voice that makes Baekhyun grin around the mouth of his bottle. “I strategically edited it out.”

“Because that was totally necessary,” Baekhyun says, nodding.

“Completely,” Yixing says, and then grins wide, pulling Baekhyun to laugh. “Thanks.”

“You’re very welcome,” Baekhyun says, nodding exaggeratedly at Yixing, who chuckles. “What are you thanking me for again?”

“For singing with me today,” Yixing says, voice warm through the chatter of the bar.

“You love doing it,” Baekhyun says lightly, though he watches Yixing from the corner of his eye. Part of this week had been checking in with Junmyeon, who has now taken to texting him with little encouraging messages along the lines of _do a good job and don’t crash and burn_ except with old outdated smilies. “You love performing, and doing music, and showing and sharing that part of you with people. Why wouldn’t I want to help you do that?”

For a moment, Yixing looks like he wants to argue with him, to tell him he’s wrong, or that he’s missing something. Then he sighs, relaxing at the bar, and a part of him releases, his expression changing to something less reserved. At least around Baekhyun.

Back in the school that day, Baekhyun had watched as Yixing laughed and spoke freely, openly, with Minseok. The two of them catching up as Baekhyun lingered at the side not sure when to jump into the conversation until Minseok took pity on him. It was a little startling, to see Yixing, who Baekhyun had once known and been closer with than any, so distant.

Not that Baekhyun had any right to feel upset about it, after all. Still, it lingered, and he couldn’t help but feel a little envious and a little wistful as he watched the closeness between Minseok and Yixing and wanted it back.

“You once did,” Yixing says, and his voice is less guarded now as well, fingers spinning his bottle of beer slowly in his hands. “It was nice today,” he comments. “I know we practice before hand, but-” He takes a short inhale, and looks out over the bar area before him, a small frown creasing his forehead. “It was different, and today was…”

“Successful?” Baekhyun prompts, pushing down the light flutter in his chest.

“Familiar,” Yixing sighs as he speaks, eyes drawing back to Baekhyun. They’re almost hot. “I missed performing with you.”

Turning, Baekhyun takes another sip of his beer, though his small smile remains when he pulls the bottle away. He can’t deny that it felt nice, to sit and sing with Yixing, just like they had all those years ago. There was none of the dramatics and frantic touch ups of make up before he was sent on stage to perform. Instead, it was just the comfortable rush that Baekhyun can’t explain why he loves. Even sitting with Yixing in his room had done that, and today was poignant. Melding his voice with Yixing’s, singing and feeling the music flow through him, his voice taking it and crafting it with hardly any effort.

It had made him happy. Incredibly happy.

“I missed it too,” Baekhyun tells him honestly. Turning back to Yixing, he smiles genuinely at him, grateful. “We still make a good team.”

“You must miss it,” Yixing says, leaning a bit closer as the crowd swells. It’s just them tonight, Lu Han and Jinri busy at the bar and the others too preoccupied to come out. Minseok had mentioned he may come out later, but made no promises. It makes Baekhyun all the more aware when Yixing is so close, bare shoulder brushing his arm. “Singing, and performing, and doing what you love.”

Tipping back his beer again, Baekhyun swallows to whet his drying throat. “I am doing what I love,” Baekhyun tells him. “I’m here partially because I am doing what I love.”

“Which is getting other people on stage when you’re the one who really wants to be there,” Yixing murmurs, and he’s close enough to Baekhyun’s side he has no trouble hearing him. There is a vaguely glassy quality to his eyes, almost misted and Baekhyun wets his lips as he watches him. “You used to be so driven for it, making me believe in dreams that no one else could fathom, a world where it was just us and no one could stop it.”

He’s so warm, leaning into Baekhyun’s side just as he used to, overheating and never wearing clothing for anything except for ‘warm’. Baekhyun tries to swallow down another swig of beer only to realize his bottle is empty. “The world isn’t very kind to dreams like that,” Baekhyun murmurs. His eyes fall to the bottle in Yixing’s hands, still being slowly spun. It’s also empty. “People love to break them.”

“You once told me you’d never give up,” Yixing says, face turned to Baekhyun and too close. He’s frowning a little, as if vaguely confused, and it makes his lower lip push out just slightly. 

“I also once told you that we’d be forever,” Baekhyun says. It slips off his tongue unintentionally and bitter, but it almost feels therapeutic. To finally say it. “I guess I lied.” Yixing’s frown deepens but he doesn’t pull away and Baekhyun has to turn from him instead. “There is no forever.”

Somehow, this makes Yixing laugh, and Baekhyun suppresses a gasp as he feels Yixing’s arm rest lightly at the small of his back. Baekhyun closes his eyes, and pushes the feeling to the back of his mind. “You don’t believe that,” he says, and Baekhyun wants to turn and snap at him that he’s wrong. “You always said forever was as long as you could imagine, and that you didn’t believe in the forever that was said in fairy tales.” Baekhyun closes his mouth, lips pressing together now as well. “You said you never liked fairy tales.”

“I also said I didn’t need them because I was the prince,” Baekhyun says, and his voice almost cracks. “Which is why I kept pestering you to let me borrow your family’s horse so I could fit the part.”

“And then you fell off,” Yixing reminds him and smiles when Baekhyun lets out a hoarse chuckle. “Want to give it another go?”

The dim lights in the bar make Yixing’s eyes dance and shine, and Baekhyun reminds himself he’s doing this for a reason when he lets Yixing pull him up. Lu Han waves them off with a distracted hand, and the cooler night air of mid August has Baekhyun giving an involuntary shiver.

It isn’t until the old farm horse that the Zhang’s have kept throws Baekhyun for the second time in his life that he feels warm again. His heart racing and nerves alive and tingling, Baekhyun shakes his head and feels warm from the sound of Yixing’s unabashed laughter at him. This time, Baekhyun laughs with him, and when Yixing slings an arm around him and says, “just like the old days,” with his lips brushing his ear, he doesn’t deny it.

Instead, under the silver light of the moon, he laughs and leans back, letting his arm wind around Yixing’s waist and says breathlessly, “yes.”

♭

_Baekhyun is holding a microphone. It’s shaking in his hand. The light that shines is a bit too strong, but he breathes in deep and closes his eyes to center himself. Opening his eyes, he turns to look through the blinding stage lights to his side and is met with a smile. Yixing is already there, seated on his stool and cradling his grandfather’s old beat up guitar, his own mic poised before him on a stand._

_“I’m here,” Yixing tells him, and his smile warms in the center of Baekhyun’s heart. Where it always reaches easily._

_He turns back, looking out over the venue that tinges with the aroma of coffee and baked goods at the back of his senses. There are so many faces, scattered farther and farther back, and he couldn’t pick out the scout if he tried. His heart shudders, and he breathes out before swallowing. His throat is relaxed, and his voice ready for him, warmed up and waiting._

_Yixing softly counts off and the first notes of the guitar fill the coffee house live night from the amplifying speakers. Baekhyun breathes in for a count of ten, closes his eyes, and sings the first starting note. His fingers curl around the mic and his own voice rings through him, sweeping and centering him as it becomes him. He’s smiling before the first verse opens and he sings the lyrics Yixing and he wrote by the light of too many cans of cola and held hands._

_Songs that are them, spinning into each other amid brief introductions and Baekhyun teasing the crowd, always with his attention back on Yixing. Back on the reason he’s here, the reason he’s happy, the reason there is a nervous rivulet that flows through him._

_The show ends with their faster set, which mostly is less about talent than it is about them showing off, Baekhyun using his voice to joke and Yixing turning the guitar into a drum between chords. The spaces between harmonies are filled with Yixing’s soft voice and Baekhyun comes alive with it._

_A hand rests on his back, making him jump as he wraps up the final note, and he turns._

_Taeyeon is smiling at him, her Bluetooth earpiece attached and holding a clipboard to her chest as she looks between himself and Yixing. Baekhyun is breathless, and the stick of sweat lingers at his hairline and along his neck. Yixing’s hand is firmly wrapped around his own._

_“We want you!” Taeyeon tells them, her eyes curving up in a bright smile. “Congratulations!”_

_Baekhyun, filled with the rush of success, turns to Yixing. Rather than smiling though, Yixing is crying, his eyes closed and teeth sunk into his lower lip as he pulls away. “I never cared if this was about being famous,” Yixing says through a choked voice. “I thought this was about us, doing this together. Does what we have really mean so little?”_

_“Yixing,” Baekhyun’s own face is painted in tears, and he reaches out for Yixing only to find his arms can’t reach._

_“It’s too risky,” Junmyeon tells him, wearing glasses and with a tie that isn’t straight. “You’re too close.”_

_“I won’t do this without him!” Baekhyun screams but it comes out too soft, muted to his own ears as he watches Yixing’s expression harden until he can’t see past the walls in his eyes. Shut down, shut him out. “I don’t want to.”_

_“Maybe forever isn’t for what we have, Baekhyun,” Yixing had said in a voice not his own. “Maybe forever was never here for us, and you’ve just been chasing day dreams to run from your fears. But I’m not a dream, Baekhyun.”_

_The stage is cold, and Baekhyun is exhausted as news articles plaster before him and televisions report about his work, the world he created. Pictures of himself with plastic smiles and barely remembering the nights amid seas of euphoria that crashed into him drowning in drinks to forget._

_You can’t love him._

_“I’m not a dream, Baekhyun,” Yixing’s voice whispers softly as Baekhyun curls around nothing and pushes down the red flashes and angered yells that dwell at the depths of his dreams. “I don’t go away when you wake up.”_

Baekhyun opens his eyes. The sunlight is streaming in through the window of his rented unit, filtering through the dust lingering in the air of the room. The bed is host only to him, twisted and wrapped in the sheets he fell asleep in last night, and the clock reads mid morning.

A dream.

Sighing and running his hands down his face, Baekhyun tries to piece together the dream he had. It had Yixing, and fragments of a past Baekhyun doesn't often linger on. Lately, all he’s been able to do is linger, the whole of his past present and vivid before him as he lives in it again. The town is the same, just the people in it older, and himself no longer a part of it.

“I knew sending you out on ‘holiday’ was going to make you lazy,” greets him when he opens the video call.

“Whatever, I sleep at my desk anyway. Now I can just do all my work in my pajamas,” Baekhyun tells the face on his screen, flashing him a tired smile. He feels stale, like the sleep he had wasn't enough. “Don’t get too jealous.”

“I won’t,” Chanyeol promises him, flashing him a smile and a ‘V’ with two fingers. “Any luck?”

With Junmyeon, Baekhyun might have gone into a bantering conversation about what Junmyeon is specifically asking about. It would be fun, and he could do it with Chanyeol, but Chanyeol is faster to tease back, and Baekhyun isn’t in the mood. The dream from this morning still lingering, clogging his thoughts.

“Well, he let me ride his horse the other night, so I’d say that's progress.” Baekhyun watches with immediate gratification as Chanyeol promptly chokes on the coffee he’d been trying to take a sip of. He sputters into a coughing fit, trying to put the hot coffee down before he spilled it all over his computer. “How’s our baby?”

“You rode his-“

“Horse,” Baekhyun says, nodding and sitting back, enjoying the way Chanyeol’s eyes go wide and then squint, and then go wide again. “What? Have you never ridden a horse before? I thought you probably would be the kind to love riding horses. Majestically. On white sand beaches in long flowing clothing. Like a romance book cover art.”

“Well, that all depends on if we’re talking about the same kind of horse riding most romance novels talk about,” Chanyeol says and fixes Baekhyun with a look. “As in, did you actually ride a real life horse, or is this all just a big farce for you telling me about how you are getting happily laid?”

“Well, you know me,” Baekhyun says, waving a hand loftily. “I’m multitalented.”

“But I don’t know Yixing, aside from the youtube videos of him where he looks like a cross between a bunny and the most perfect boyfriend singer I’ve ever seen. Who is also possibly celibate.”

“Not celibate,” Baekyun says immediately, and then presses his lips together, pushing those flashes of memory to the very depths of his mind. “Well, I don’t think he is now.”

“Ah, so it was a real life horse,” Chanyeol says, drawing out a wide smile as he leans close to the computer’s camera. It makes the dark circles under his eyes look even darker. “How disappointing.”

“Well, Yixing was there, and he’s been very huggy lately, so I’m taking all those as good signs,” Baekhyun replies hastily. It feels defensive, and Baekhyun doesn’t want to admit to Chanyeol that he’s been spending as much time getting closer to Yixing because he enjoys it as he’s doing for work. Harder to admit is to himself that most of the time, he’s not thinking of work at all.

“Huggy,” Chanyeol repeats.

“You know, where you touch people a lot and try to hug them and there’s a lot of hands in interesting places,” Baekhyun elaborates. “Like how Jongdae is with Kyungsoo and how Kyungsoo pretends he doesn’t enjoy it at all.”

“So you’re Kyungsoo,” Chanyeol hums at him, pushing his glasses up. “And Yixing is slowly becoming a trolling shit.”

“Yes,” Baekhyun says. “A trolling cherubic shit who may be joining our company. You’ll love him once I’m done corrupting him.”

“It’s a shame he couldn’t rub off more on you,” Chanyeol laments. “You should check about the celibacy thing pronto. Though I’m not sure Junmyeon will be delighted to know you’re primary method of convincing your client is in bed.”

“Junmyeon would get over it eventually, just like he eventually accepted how lame he is but decided not to change it,” Baekhyun says, scratching a hand through his hair. “Still have no idea how he does it.”

“What? Maintain dignity?” Chanyeol asks.

“No, become even more embarrassing,” Baekhyun corrects and earns a chuckle from Chanyeol. He lets out a long breath, and pulls at the files beside his computer. “Things are moving though. We did a show this week and I’ve been trying to get more about why he’s declined so I can figure out how to get him on board. I think mostly he’s just got the wrong impression and doesn’t trust us after what happened before.”

“Well, it was a hard blow,” Chanyeol sympathizes. “You remember what happened to me, right?”

“You danced like the uncoordinated goof you are and they told you exactly that,” Baekhyun condenses the story. “Such a sob story.”

“You mock my pain,” Chanyeol grumbles, flashing him a feigned hurt look.

“Of course I mock you, how else am I supposed to keep your raging ego from taking over?” Baekhyun tells him, flipping open the documents and feeling even more tired. “He just needs some reassurance.” The look on Chanyeol’s face isn’t entirely encouraging, and Baekhyun pushes on before he can open his mouth. “How is Joy?”

“Cute as ever,” Chanyeol says, shifting immediately to the subject of their mentee project. “Also tall and possibly more cherubic than your youtube love.”

“He’s not cherubic, he just has dimples,” Baekhyun sighs, and Chanyeol grins. “Besides, we’re talking about Joy now.”

“Oh yes, excuse me for being remotely off topic, Mr. Byun.”

The name referral is as strange and uncomfortable as it always is, and Baekhyun keeps his eyes on his documents. It hides some of the emotion he has been unable to control from flashing over his face as of late.

The call with Chanyeol ends after about an hour, the two of them discussing the plans for Joy, Baekhyun getting updates on the company and his own side of the business, and Chanyeol’s brief side story about his exploration of an online dating site. 

It’s well after noon when Baekhyun makes his way downtown, passing the picketed fences of the familiar houses and turning over his thoughts. It had all muddled together back then, when it went so quickly from Baekhyun and Yixing playing music together, planning for the great dream of becoming stars, where they were together and their music was their life with each other.

The contact from the companies, the sudden onslaught of offers had been a rush, Baekhyun’s balance been so thrown the only thing keeping his feet on the ground was Yixing’s hand around his own. When they’d been offered the deal, he remembers kissing the tears from Yixing’s face before meeting his laughing lips.

And then it hadn’t been as exciting, and the thrill died down bit by bit until it broke.

“Baekhyun?” Mr. Kim asks, his eyes widening behind his glasses as he takes him in. Then he smiles, letting out a soft old chuckle as he puts down a cleaning rag. “He’s not here today.”

Blinking, Baekhyun looks around the shop. Turning back to Mr. Kim, he smiles slowly. “How do you know I’m not just here to see you?” he asks, a slow natural smile spreading over his face. Mr. Kim scoffs, letting out a few gruff sounds as he shoos him from the shop, telling him Yixing is off for the day and to take his ‘young-un’ self away’.

There isn’t much to do in the town, aside from wander, most of the things he might do back in the city unavailable. There is only one coffee shop and few delis, the market itself small and primarily stocked with local produce. He ends up walking, loosening his collar against the mid day heat, and brushing his hair from his face as it falls into his eyes.

Junmyeon will take a moment when Baekhyun gets back, frowning and informing him he needs to cut it, fussing before he remembers Baekhyun isn’t under orders anymore. He can technically grow his hair to his waist.

Not that he would.

“What’s got you so deep in thought?” asks a lighter voice, making Baekhyun turn. Just behind him a few steps with a guitar slung over her shoulder, is Seulgi. It’s been a while since Baekhyun last saw her, most of it from Yixing’s collaboration recordings when he’d recommended fellow artists to help them promote. Seulgi is smiling at him, leaning a little towards him as she waits for an answer.

“Hair,” Baekhyun answers honestly, and grins himself at her surprised expression. “I was just contemplating growing it out as long as yours. What do you think?” he asks, gesturing to her long swinging hair as it falls almost to her waist.

“I think it’d take you a while,” Seulgi says, apparently unfazed as she steps up to walk along side him. She’s smiling, and one of her hands is wrapped around the strap of the guitar slung over her shoulder. “Though it would definitely be a new look for you.”

“I’m up for an image change,” Baekhyun says with a cocky tilt of his head. Seulgi smiles, turning away to shake her head. “Where are you off to?”

“I was going to meet Irene,” she explains. “We had a few things we wanted to go over before the open mic on Saturday.” She glances over. “Want to help? We could do with a professional’s advice.”

“Retired professional,” Baekhyun reminds her. “I’m mentoring these days. That and taking a tip or two from my partner in the production world.”

“Would you be willing to work for free?” Seulgi asks, raising her brows. “Or is charity below you?”

“I’ll make an exception for you two, but only because I like you so much,” Baekhyun tells her and she laughs, her steps lightening.

Seulgi and Irene had been students when Baekhyun had left, both of them just starting in the school. He remembers them from seeing Seulgi hanging out with Jongin, the two of them both on the dance team Yixing had once been captain of. They were sweet girls.

Irene greets him with a smile and a hug, bounding up and wrapping her thin arms around him in a surprisingly strong hug before she pulls away. They’re in one of the old community centers around town, laid out on the lawn on an old threadbare blanket. As Seulgi tunes up her guitar, Irene asks Baekhyun about his time in town, explaining how she and Seulgi are planning on moving to the city next year.

“So you’re buttering me up to get a good word in,” Baekhyun teases her, and Irene bites her lip to control her smile.

“As if,” she says, swinging her long hair away from her face. “We want our own music and to do our own stuff. Besides,” she adds, looking back at Seulgi, bent over her guitar with a look of concentration. “We’re just as happy to play on the streets and sell homemade albums, especially when the city has larger audiences.”

“It’s not as secure though,” Baekhyun reminds, watching her. “And you wouldn’t make as much money.”

Irene smiles, a soft complacent smile, her eyes still on Seulgi as she tunes up the guitar. She is still looking at the other girl when she says, “money isn’t the reason we’re doing this.”

“They’re doing it because they love it,” says a warm familiar voice and Baekhyun turns in sync with Irene. “Sorry I’m late,” Yixing says, meeting Irene’s eyes and swinging his own guitar from his shoulders. “I was held up in class.”

“I thought you stopped taking the evening classes,” Seulgi says, looking up from her guitar. Yixing only glances briefly to Baekhyun, offering a smile, before he strides to sit down on the blanket. “Said you wanted to work with the afternoon classes only.”

“I was just subbing for the evening hip hop sectional,” Yixing explains. “Jongin had some trouble with the girls. Had to go into the superintendent and have a ‘talk’.”

“You’d think they’d stop giving him grief by now,” Seulgi sighs, scooting over on the blanket to make more room as Yixing pulls out his grandfather’s guitar. “It’s not like they’re bad kids.”

“Didn’t they set fire to your curtains when you baby sat for them?” Irene asks, laughing a bit as she strides to join on the blanket. Baekhyun follows her, trying to shake some of the shock at seeing Yixing that seems to cling to him. He had been looking for Yixing, after all.

“Well,” Seulgi says, and then makes a bit of a confounded face. “Look, that doesn’t mean they’re bad kids. Just a bit…”

“Hazardous,” Irene supplies and Seulgi laughs. Irene smiles and settles herself down, looking back at Baekhyun. “Thanks for coming. It’s been a while since we had more than just Yixing.”

“That’s because you don’t ask,” Yixing comments and finally turns to Baekhyun. “Are you mentoring them now? And here I was thinking I was the special one.”

“You turned me down,” Baekhyun reminds him, settling down on the blanket. “Not my fault I’m giving you up as a lost cause. Seulgi practically begged me.” Seulgi snorts and Irene covers a laugh behind her hand. “Consider me more of an audience member,” he continues, looking at the girls as Yixing’s eyes remain on him, oddly sharp. “Your own personal cheering squad.”

“Can you keep quiet enough to let us actually practice?” Irene asks, and Seulgi laughs fully as Yixing smiles in amusement.

“I thought you wanted my help,” Baekhyun says, mock offended as he settles down beside Yixing.

“We do,” Seulgi says. “You can give us feedback with Yixing.”

Settling down to watch them, Baekhyun finds himself listening and enjoying the two of them practicing more than specifically looking for flaws. It’s more familiar, where the music is less critical and manufactured and Seulgi and Irene blend their voices together into smooth improvisations and harmonies. Yixing listens beside him, hands still on his guitar and smile soft.

It’s a nice shift of the evening, which Baekhyun had initially intended as one checking up on Yixing and seeing how he was. The conversation with Chanyeol that morning seems far away in the dimming light as the sunset paints the sky in various colors of pink and burgundy. The hot temperatures from the day slip gently down, the crickets beginning to sing.

Seulgi’s fingers plucking gentle chords as she and Irene sing are welcoming, and Baekhyun smiles as he watches them. They’re so in tune with each other, matching transitions and flowing in between the notes with simple small glances and smiles before diving back into the songs.

Rather than offering a surplus of critique, Baekhyun lets himself just sit and enjoy. It’s nice, like how music used to be for him, those old coffee house shows and open mics. Watching the girls, it feels so familiar, the two of them so in sync, weaving together and the music from them showing them as well as the songs.

They’re performing in a live session later, and have a few gigs lined up after that. This much Yixing whispers into his ear as the girls sing, leaning close with his lips just brushing the shell of Baekhyun’s ear, breath tickling his neck. Baekhyun holds back the shiver from it, instead sinking his teeth into his lower lip and pulling it into his mouth, fingers curling together in his lap.

It’s nicer to just watch as Yixing offers small little pointers, checking with Baekhyun on a few of them and smiling when it earns him a nod.

The girls clap and cheer when they manage to goad Yixing into playing something for them, and Yixing smiles as he pulls his guitar back into his lap. It’s a familiar song, one that Baekhyun recognizes from hearing it played and sung countless times. Some to an audience, some just for him.

He smiles. 

“Any critiques?” Yixing asks, slipping to settle beside him, his guitar half in its case. “Or did I do alright by your standards?”

“You were fine,” Baekhyun tells him, keeping his voice down as Seulgi and Irene continue to practice, now facing each other. Yixing’s eyes flicker when Baekhyun meets them, and he can feel the warmth radiating from him. “What? It wasn’t the most amazing performance I’ve ever seen, but you sounded great! You always do.” Yixing narrows his eyes only a little and Baekhyun slaps him lightly on the thigh.

It’s tempting to let his hand linger and he wonders what Yixing would do if he did.

“Thanks,” Yixing says, quieter, his eyes dropping for a moment. Baekhyun blinks, unfamiliar with this version of Yixing. The one he remembers used to be second guessing, unsure of whether it had been enough, nervous for mistakes. When he’d been reduced to stressed crying because of the pressure.

“I always like watching you perform,” Baekhyun says, offering a smile. “I always have. That’s how we met, remember?”

“I thought we met because Amber happens to be amazing at social networking.”

“Nah, that was all me,” Baekhyun says, his grin widening and earning a soft chuckle from Yixing. He doesn’t shift away as Baekhyun leans back on his hands, edging just a bit closer. “You did that open solo show sitting on a stool in my first year with that old guitar on your knees and your hair too long.” Yixing’s face has fallen into shadows as the sun sets, but Baekhyun can feel his eyes on him. “I watched from backstage.”

“I didn’t know that,” Yixing says quietly. It’s almost like he’s timid to speak, like Baekhyun has just pushed too far with them as they are now. It’s not like they’re enemies, and a part of Baekhyun hopes that Yixing will remember how much he loved to sing for people, to do what they wanted to do.

It’s then that he stills, his breath hitching as he realizes his thoughts.

What they wanted to do.

“Well,” Baekhyun says, trying to cover the husk in his voice by keeping it soft. “Now you know.” He pauses, looking back at the girls and watching them fuss over a specific part of their set list. “How often do you do this?” Yixing hums to him inquisitively. “Help them,” Baekhyun explains, still watching as Seulgi and Irene pause and laugh, looking at each other, eyes bright. “Spend time with them to help them with their aspirations?”

“When they ask me,” Yixing answers. When Baekhyun chances a look at him, he’s also watching the girls. “They ask more for tips on music, for ideas and for support than expertise.” He leans back a bit, resting on the grass beyond the blanket and looks up at Baekhyun, a sudden smile on his face. “They remind me of us a little.”

“Us?” Baekhyun swallows as he meets Yixing’s eyes.

“From before,” Yixing elaborates. “How we used to be. Working hard and planning all that we could to make it, no matter what it took. In love and working for something we share.” He exhales, though it's not tired, more of relaxed, tilting his head back to look at the stars winking into life above them. “I want to see them succeed, and I think they can. Just like I thought we could.”

Even in the dim light, the bare column of his throat is pale, blending down into his collarbones and chest, exposed as he’s in yet another tank. Baekhyun’s fingers curl in the cool grass. “I hope they aren’t like us,” he says, looking back at the girls and feeling something in his chest tighten.

“Because it didn’t work out?” Yixing asks, and Baekhyun feels the light brush of his fingers against his arm. He shivers.

He never answers, instead sitting up and curling his knees to his chest, smiling and watching the girls as they transition into a faster piece.

♭

Seulgi and Irene are not Yixing and Baekhyun. Their dreams are different and their relationship without the ties and almost painful depth.

They’re young and clear and their horizons are kinder.

"I hope they aren't like us," Baekhyun tells no one in the quiet of his single unit. "I don't want them to know what it's like to lose each other."

♭

The open mic is held at the only actual coffee shop in town. It’s run by Heechul and Siwon, two of Baekhyun’s seniors he remembers from high school. He had thought that both of them moved away, Heechul to move into a radio business and Siwon with his stunning background in the school’s drama department to become the next male face of stardom. Both of them look like they’re happy here though, trading smiles and quips back and forth as they serve customers.

“I thought you had your own radio show,” Baekhyun comments, lingering by the counter as he waits for the performances to start.

“I do,” Heechul tells him with a raised look. He taps Baekhyun a little too hard on the back of the hand as he catches him eying a sample plate of biscotti. “I just host the late night section, which means I can play literally anything I want and no one can boss me around.”

“I remember you used to like bossing people around,” Baekhyun comments. He smiles as he watches Heechul use the same spoon to whack Siwon’s ass as he passes, earning an exaggerated expression. “I see that hasn’t changed.”

“Exactly,” Heechul says happily. “And only one biscotti sample, unless you’re going to cough up and pay for the lot. I’ve got my eye on those pretty fingers of yours.” He gives Baekhyun a good natured wink though, and Baekhyun ends up with his coffee and a free biscotti on the saucer. Siwon winks at him as Heechul snaps at his waist with a towel, getting a grin from his coworker.

The café is the only thing that looks remotely modernized, the place remodeled despite the old exterior of the building. The high ceilings with exposed beams give it a good feeling, the stage positioned up front by the windows easily visible from all points in the café. It’s perfect for the small music world that seems to have sprung up here.

Up front, Baekhyun can see where Seulgi and Irene are speaking with another girl about their age, all three of them smiling as they chatter. There are a few other musicians Baekhyun doesn’t know, and he sees most of those he knew when he lived here in the crowd. Sehun and Jongin had greeted him when they had arrived before wandering back to linger with Jongin’s parents, Jongin immediately lifting one of his nieces into his arms. 

Baekhyun takes a sip of his coffee, slipping towards the display cases and stepping carefully over the wiring for the sound systems. “Hey,” he says, carefully nudging Minseok’s shoulder. The other man is standing alone, holding his own coffee, and looking around the room quietly.

Seeing him, Minseok smiles, turning to him. “I didn’t know if you’d come to one of these or not,” Minseok says. The genuine surprise makes that tightness in Baekhyun’s chest increase. “I thought you’d graduated from these open mic sessions.”

“I thought after I did a sing-a-long for your hatchlings you’d think better of me,” Baekhyun says, giving Minseok a pointed look over the rim of his coffee mug. “I’m not all fame and my head is still the same size as it always was.”

“Just barely staying on your shoulders,” Minseok comments and Baekhyun allows himself a chuckle. “Are you performing tonight?”

“I hadn’t planned on it,” Baekhyun says honestly. It had crossed his mind, albeit very briefly. But this isn’t his world, and this is a place that has their own dynamic and community that he doesn’t belong to anymore, even if he once did. He’s sure he could ask to go up tonight, and a part of him yearns to be back on the stage, but it wouldn’t feel right.

Still…

The chairs laid out around the café have all been gathered, and a few folding ones provided as well for patrons. Siwon and Heechul shut down the bar and kitchen as they dim the lights for the performances, and Baekhyun ends up seated beside Minseok. The audience hushes as Heechul takes the stage, introducing the event and the first performers of the evening.

It’s a little strange, sitting in the audience fully, without ever needing to check the time or the set list or warm up his voice just a bit more outside. Baekhyun closes his eyes, letting himself listen to the different songs and styles, the voices that all carry over the speakers he watched Siwon set up earlier. Minseok doesn’t comment, instead just watching the performers with his fingers gently tapping his knee.

Once, Baekhyun might have leaned over to speak with him, perhaps to actually comment, mostly just to bother him. Tonight, Baekhyun finds himself biting his tongue, eyes drifting constantly to the line up of musicians near the far wall by the door. 

Waiting for their turn to stand and look out into bright stage lights that are just a bit too warm and into faces barely visible in the darkness. Waiting to look out, and smile, and know it’s where they’re meant to be.

Baekhyun curls his fingers together in his lap, breathing deep as a sudden rush of longing floods him. Beside him, he hears Minseok shift, and presses his eyes closed. He doesn’t move, just listening and trying to keep the sudden rush of emotion through him quiet.

He misses it, not only just singing in coffee shops and small venues, but singing for people at all.

A light touch to his arm has him opening his eyes. Baekhyun turns with a comforting and reassuring smile to Minseok, fingers curling tighter to keep himself contained. “I’m fine,” he says quietly, and is saved from elaborating as the performer finishes. The applause distracts both Minseok and himself from the brief lapse.

Careful to be quiet, Baekhyun excuses himself from his seat, getting up to walk, needing to move. Standing gets the air moving, his head clearing faster as he navigates to the back and listens as the next soloist introduces herself.

Grabbing a glass of water from the complimentary carafe, Baekhyun lets the cool liquid soothe down his throat. The girl on stage is young, and her face is gentle and stunning. She’s the same girl that had been talking to Seulgi and Irene earlier, and she sits on the stage like she was meant to be there.

Born to be there.

“Her name is Wendy,” says a voice suddenly into his ear, startling him as it tickles over his skin warmly. Turning to look and thankful he hasn’t dropped his drink, Baekhyun lets out a soft breath before smiling at Yixing. “She’s visiting in town for the night. The girls are close with her. She’s her own traveling artist, and not doing too bad for herself.”

“Sounds talented,” Baekhyun muses, shifting his weight and feeling Yixing press closer, side brushing. “Is she planning on doing the same as the girls, or shooting higher?”

“She’s taking things one step at a time,” Yixing murmurs, voice low to keep under the soft timbre of Wendy’s voice as she chats while she tunes her guitar. Baekhyun can feel Yixing’s breath against his neck and he keeps his eyes on Wendy on stage. “She doesn’t want to end up in a box though, strained through a system that bleeds the originality and meaning behind her music.”

Baekhyun has only heard Yixing’s voice though his eyes remained on Wendy. It fills him more than her smile, digging into that surge he’d felt earlier with Minseok. It stretches further and he turns to Yixing, meeting his darkened eyes. The look in them is deeper, as if there’s more in his words than just addressing the singer on the stage strumming the opening chords to her first piece. “She may not have that happen to her. Not all people are out to take away a musician’s music.”

“Maybe she doesn’t want to have to take the risk,” Yixing muses. His eyes linger for a moment, speaking of the raw feeling that Baekhyun can feel tightening painfully at the back of his throat. Then he looks away, as if nothing has happened, and pays his full attention to the young woman on stage.

It’s like being ripped out of cold water, and Baekhyun feels the shock in his veins humming with a sort of persistence. It makes sense, as he looks back at Wendy, that what Yixing has just said may tie far more to himself than the singer on stage.

It reminds Baekhyun so strongly of what Yixing would talk about when they were preparing for their next step into the world. It would be their music, their world, them together doing what they love and nothing was supposed to stop them.

“Sometimes life is about taking risks,” Baekhyun says quietly, his focus on Wendy even as he speaks to Yixing.

“You’re right,” Yixing says, and the weight in his voice is gone. It’s replaced and light, almost joking and hopeful. “So will you take a risk tonight?” Baekhyun turns to him now, and Yixing’s eyes are bright and hold that same old light that made Baekhyun believe in dreams once. It fills him now with the same shimmering energy as before.

“Tonight?” Baekhyun blinks.

“I was asked by Heechul if I wanted to perform,” Yixing says, and a grin teases at his lips. “Sing with me.”

“But it’s your set,” Baekhyun reminds, a curl in his stomach of unease settling deep. “Plus, I’m on vacation. I stopped being on the real stage over a year ago.”

“I thought life was about taking risks?” Yixing reminds, and Baekhyun bites his lip.

“It is,” Baekhyun says, and looks back at Wendy, who is starting on her last song. “Just not about doing risky things if they’re extremely stupid.”

“That never stopped you before,” Yixing murmurs. “One song.”

On stage, Wendy is singing a cover, introduced as such, and her eyes are closed. Her voice is stunning, filling the room and with a gorgeous tone, emotion pouring through her and into the song as she dedicates herself to it.

  
_Why am I doing this to myself?  
Losing my mind on a tiny error  
I nearly left the real me on the shelf_

“One song?” Baekhyun asks, that curl in his stomach twisting up into his chest, tightening with the feeling already there as he swallows with difficulty.

  
_Don’t lose who you are_  
In the blur of the stars  
Seeing is deceiving dreaming is believing 

“Unless you’ve forgotten all my songs,” Yixing says, and there’s a light laugh in his voice.

  
_Sometimes it’s hard  
To follow your heart_

The stage lights shine off the face of the guitar as Wendy sings and the words stick to Baekhyun’s skin like the heat of midsummer. Heavy and bringing his breaths to catch in his throat.

_Just be true to who you are_

He can feel his heart in his chest as he turns to Yixing. “Only one way to find out,” he says, and the nervous jump in his chest doesn’t leave him feeling sick with apprehension. Instead, it leaves him excited, alive. 

That feeling stays with him, humming through him as he watches the performers. It stays as Yixing stands with him and suggests songs they could sing, and Baekhyun can’t stop smiling. Warming up is as habitual as walking, and he does them simultaneously as Yixing watches him and Heechul laughs openly.

The stage lights are warm as he settles under them, bright and making his skin hot, prickling as he sits on the hard surface of a stool in front of a mic. Yixing had done one song before calling Baekhyun on stage, filling the whole room with himself, and Baekhyun clings to the tendrils of it.

Breathing in, he closes his eyes for just a moment, centering in the breath as he hears Yixing play the opening chords of the song. The breath fills him, expanding in him and hovering just behind his voice, ready. He opens his eyes, and opens his mouth, and sings.

That same life courses through him, that runs in a channel through his voice, instead of draining him, makes him full. Baekhyun’s voice is his, unrestricted as he lets it go in a way he had almost forgotten.

How could he have forgotten?

The guitar from Yixing and his own voice blending with Baekhyun’s is like the support Baekhyun had lived without for so long. It’s what he thrived on, the pure feeling of joy that is almost dizzying.

How could he have forgotten how much he loved this?

Glancing to the side, he catches Yixing’s eyes and the smile so vibrant in them. Yixing sings along with him, their voices carrying through the coffee house even as Yixing’s eyes seem to mock him gleefully.

_I was right_ , they seem to say.

Baekhyun, with his heart almost too full as he sings. The words come as naturally as breathing, pulling from a place he didn’t know he’d saved them, and they’re as easy to remember as his name. Turning back to the audience, Baekhyun can’t tell Yixing anything but agreement.

He has missed this, being on stage and singing for people, letting music live through him and him through it. Baekhyun loves it.

At the end of the song, Baekhyun doesn’t feel empty. He feels happy, and when he turns to look at Yixing, he’s smiling a smile he’s not worn in years.

A truly real, free, and happy smile.

Yixing beams back at him and Baekhyun’s breath stutters as that fullness makes him want to burst.

“Worth the risk?” Yixing asks him, and his voice is slightly breathless.

Baekhyun feels just as breathless, and he can’t stop smiling. “Absolutely.” He feels warm, pleasant and encompassing as the stage lights beam down on his skin and his fingertips tingle with energy long forgotten brought back to life.

♭

The feeling hasn’t gone when Baekhyun agrees to stay after the open mic for a music session. The musicians participating end up migrating to the bar, grabbing a drink and laughing, chatting happily together as Lu Han calls to them about scaring away his usual customers. Yixing laughs, leaning with his arm slung around Baekhyun’s shoulders.

They end up playing at Amber’s house, as she drags them all back to get them to stop trying to drag out instruments at the bar. She called it damage prevention even as Sehun pouted at her for ruining a good time.

Baekhyun is between breathless laughter, singing along without a care and soaking up all the music around him. Yixing is pressed warm to his side, going between playing and joining in which his voice and guitar to resting his head on Baekhyun’s shoulder, eyes glazed and blinking slow.

Baekhyun hasn’t felt this alive in what feels like forever, and it makes him wide awake despite the late hour, practically dancing where he sits and joining in on songs he hardly knows. Wendy laughs, sprawled with her own guitar beside him.

It’s close to one in the morning when they finally leave, Baekhyun still humming and pulling Yixing along with him. Slipping their hands together, he laughs to just release the sound, getting a slightly surprised laugh from Yixing as well. The air is cool, nipping into September and the hint of the season changing.

“Where are you going?” Yixing asks him, tugging back on his hand when Baekhyun tugs him towards the center of town.

“Taking you home,” Baekhyun answers, pausing as he looks back at the shadowed figure of Yixing, his guitar slung over his shoulder once more. “You’ve been dozing on my shoulder for the past hour.”

“It’s a very comfortable shoulder,” Yixing tells him. “I couldn’t help it.” His hand is so warm around Baekhyun’s, his fingers fitting almost perfectly with Baekhyun’s own. “I don’t have to go home yet.”

For a moment, Baekhyun considers pulling away, tugging his hand free from Yixing’s and sending him home. He doesn’t though, instead letting his heart beat fast in his chest as he looks through the dark of night to Yixing illuminated in the light from the stars. “Okay,” he says, wetting his lips as his nerves simmer with energy. “Do you want to come back and keep playing for a while?”

Baekhyun pulls Yixing inside the small unit by their intertwined hands, an unrepentant smile on his face. His voice is warm from singing almost the whole way home, Yixing’s laughter at him and his hand slipping to cover his mouth, saying he’d wake the whole town.

Baekhyun didn’t care. He doesn’t care. He laughs and smiles, stepping into the unit and letting himself fall back into the bed with arms spread wide.

“You look like a kid,” Yixing tells him. He sits on the edge of the bed, pulling his guitar out of its case and into his lap. “A kid who just had way too much sugar on their birthday.”

“I kind of feel like it,” Baekhyun admits, flopping onto his back and looking over at Yixing. “Thanks.”

There is no humility when Yixing looks at him. “You’re welcome,” he says. Baekhyun grins with his tongue between his teeth as he twists on the bed to press his toes into Yixing’s side, earning a yelp. Baekhyun’s laughter gets snuffled into the bedspread as Yixing tustles with him, the two of them ending up slightly breathless as Yixing finally pulls away with his cheeks a light pink.

“I missed it,” Baekhyun admits, finally. It’s been a long time since he even let himself think about it, about how it used to feel to perform with Yixing. Before his name got tied up in contracts and images and who Baekhyun should be rather than who he is. 

Music for the love of music was something he had somehow forgotten, and slipping back into it is like recovering a part of himself he’d thrown away.

Yixing doesn’t say anything, just smiles as he pulls his guitar into his lap and strums the familiar opening chords to one of their old songs. Sitting up, Baekhyun settles himself beside Yixing, close enough to gently press his knee to Yixing’s. A silent gesture of thanks that gets one of Yixing’s dimples to press just a little deeper.

It’s like playing, the two of them going back and forth with songs, between melodies and moods chatting and teasing, Baekhyun cracking jokes and Yixing laughing and filling the room with his voice. It makes Baekhyun smile and relax, the tension in his chest, in his movements, in holding back and second guessing a touch or a comment gone. Too happy to care.

The ease of just fooling with the songs, picking up and messing with tempo, Baekhyun singing anything Yixing throws at him and making up the words he doesn’t know. It sends Yixing into laughter just as Baekhyun remembers, and it feels so good. His heart aches when Yixing plays one of Baekhyun’s songs, softer and smoother, and Baekhyun sings with him, making it theirs.

Baekhyun doesn’t move away when he feels his skin burn as Yixing’s hands brush over it. He doesn’t stop himself when he can smell Yixing’s shampoo as he leans his head on his shoulder, listening to Yixing sing a song he’s not yet heard. He hums harmonies he hears between the melodies Yixing sings for him and lets the warmth from Yixing’s thigh against his comfort him.

Baekhyun sings until his eyes won’t stay open, until his voice is slightly scratchy with use and his thigh is warm from pressing to Yixing’s. Yixing plays until the chords drift off into just his voice carrying with Baekhyun. The words get mixed up, pulling lethargic laughter as the lights in the apartment take on a muted glow.

Even after the songs have ended and the air is still, Baekhyun is still humming with it, and the warmth of it wraps around him in a way that feels more like home than any place he’s ever been.

♭

The warmth of sunlight creeps up over the room, slowly bringing the life outside into the unit as the sun rises. On a chair pulled close to the bed rests a guitar, old and well loved, and two pairs of shoes litter the floor beside it. The sunlight moves slowly, golden and gentle as it shifts up the bed. It whispers over the two twined figures there, warming quietly with a reminder of day.

The warm sun against his neck is what wakes Baekhyun, pulling him from the soft tendrils of sleep as he shifts on the bed. It’s warm, pleasant and comforting and he curls closer, letting out a soft sigh. He can hear the soft sounds of the birds outside, the stillness and a warmth that extends beyond the sunlight spreading over him. It’s instead wrapped up with him, pressing into his skin and making sleep stick to him,

The last that Baekhyun remembers waking in a moment of clinging to a space like this was long ago. Long before the media stopped trying to dig into his world and Junmyeon had finished mopping over the ‘kind of people’ Baekhyun was ‘associating’ with.

The last time, Baekhyun had awoken with the bitter taste of regret and gin on his tongue and rolled over, curling into himself until he was alone in the room, door closing from a nameless stranger with a soft click.

It’s been years since Baekhyun woke up like this, clinging to the space between dreams and waking and feeling safe. Feeling content to just lay here, wrapped and easy and that comfort leads him to open his eyes.

Laid out beside him and curled to him Yixing is still asleep. The sunlight streams over him, reaching up to softly brush over his side in golden light. His hand is resting warm over Baekhyun’s side, and his lips are parted just slightly as he sleeps, lashes cashing tiny shadows on his cheeks. His dark hair falls about his face, splaying on the bedspread and brushing above his eyes, just asking to be brushed back.

They had fallen asleep without thought last night, both still in their clothing and spread out over the covers. Baekhyun can feel his shirt scrunched up under his side and Yixing’s tank hangs loose, exposing smooth and warm skin. Laying so close, he’s so handsome, the soft qualities making him striking and Baekhyun’s heart flutters.

It looks like just the softest breath will wake him, just the barest of movements will have him opening his eyes and the moment will shatter. Baekhyun will be too close, will be biting down and despite his bravado, he’ll be too hesitant to reach out.

The number of times that Baekhyun has woken up like this he has stored away, he’s locked up and kept secret for himself. Denied himself the significance of it, as they always were painful to revisit. 

The scene is so familiar though, the same as where Baekhyun would wake in the morning after a night where he climbed into Yixing’s old room through his window. Those mornings when he would wake up in Yixing’s arms, warm and held and loved, and he couldn’t imagine wanting to be anywhere else.

He had been young, and he had been in love. It was what he knew, and everything about Yixing pulled him in, made him safe with who he was. Baekhyun’s family drove him from the house on a near daily basis back then for who he was, for what he loved.

Yixing had become his soft place to fall, patient and waiting and gently wiping the scared and irrational tears from his face. Yixing had been his world, and Baekhyun had fallen in love so hard it took him ages to forget.

Back in the office with Junmyeon a month ago, Baekhyun had thought his past was behind him, stored in the stale memories of his heart where Yixing left him and their dream to wither.

Here, now, being with Yixing and once more pulling out who he is, what he loves, and that old spark of life, Baekhyun realizes he was wrong.

Lying on top of the bedspread with Yixing’s quiet breath just ghosting over his knuckles, Baekhyun had never fallen out of love with the other man.

It’s not the heart pounding love that most of the songs he used to sing were about, because love that’s been this long doesn’t work like that. It’s just there, and Baekhyun can’t ignore it when he looks at Yixing and knows it wouldn’t matter if Yixing woke up and kissed him or pulled away, his heart wouldn’t change.

Baekhyun can’t ignore it, that if he could he’d choose to wake up like this every day for the rest of his life.

There aren’t many things Baekhyun regrets in his life, but closing Yixing out from his life is the one he can’t ignore. Not anymore.

It doesn’t matter if Yixing still has feelings for him, Baekhyun is in love with him. It doesn’t matter if Yixing has moved on, Baekhyun is in love with him. It's the kind of thing that’s scary because regardless of what happens, Baekhyun will still be in love with Yixing.

It’s a swell in his heart that fits to burst as Baekhyun looks at the only man he’s ever truly loved and all of his repressed emotions, the long nights and the days of longing let loose. When he’d have given anything to just wake up like this, with Yixing’s arms around him and the peace and stability that gives him.

He’s shaking, and his breath hitches when Yixing stirs and slowly blinks his eyes open. They’re hazed and soft with sleep, and it takes a moment before Yixing looks at him. Then he blinks slowly, and the reality that Yixing was the one that left first, that Yixing may not love him, pushes so hard into Baekhyun it clogs at the back of his throat.

Once more, Baekhyun is staring at Yixing with wide eyes and he can’t breathe.

Yixing slowly blinks his eyes, and Baekhyun swallows down the ache that begins to spread through him as he tries to smile. “Morning,” he says, shifting back a bit on the bed.

“Morning,” Yixing says groggily. It sounds the same as when Yixing would whisper it to the skin of Baekhyun’s forehead. He bites his lip to keep from shivering. “Sleep well?”

“Not too bad,” Baekhyun says, shrugging as best he can lying down. He shifts back a bit more and Yixing’s hand slips from his waist. Yixing blinks. “How about you?”

The smile that Yixing gives him hurts most of all. “Never better,” Yixing hums lightly, and then rolls onto his back and stretches, arms reaching up overhead as he lets out a soft contented sound.

Like he belongs here.

It would be easy to just slip closer, to not think and just curl up with Yixing, fitting their bodies together. Easier to take the other man’s tendency to touch and keep close and drink it into himself. Basking in the affection even if it may not mean what he wants it to.

When Yixing relaxes with a sigh, turning to Baekhyun with a kind of lazy smile, the sunlight whispering up his chest, and Baekhyun’s heart jumps. Ignoring the shadow it causes to pass over Yixing’s face, he sits up, turning away and looking over the room.

It’s past nine, and Baekhyun can feel the exhaustion in his limbs. He’s not sure when they got to sleep last night, but he knows it was well past three when he’d drifted off, curled up with Yixing.

He closes his eyes, briefly trying to settle the flesh memory that presses into him insistently. On his desk, his computer rests, the folders that Junmyeon had sent him stacked haphazardly around it. It’s a bitter reminder that Baekhyun isn’t here to reconnect with Yixing and try to fix what went wrong five years ago.

He’s here to recruit him.

So far, Baekhyun has done a very good job of mostly ignoring that. Honest with himself, he’s been spending more time getting Yixing to let him in again than wearing him down to accept his company offer.

At this point, Baekhyun isn’t even sure _he_ wants Yixing to accept the offer. It would mean the same thing it did before, where he and Yixing would be separated but always within reach, forbidden.

“Hey,” whispers a soft voice just behind him. The bed dips at his side and he can feel Yixing nestle at his side. The air rushes from him as he feels Yixing’s arms start to wind around him. Baekhyun stands quickly before he leans back into it. He turns, fixing his expression to nonchalance and looks at Yixing.

The mixed worry and confusion on Yixing’s face are stark, and Baekhyun doesn’t have the strength to ignore it. To act like it isn’t there.

“Is everything okay?”

No. No, it isn’t okay. It hasn’t been okay for over five years and Baekhyun can’t tell Yixing that because he’s scared. He doesn’t know what to do this time. He didn’t know what to do before and Yixing had made the decision for him. It won’t work that way this time, and Baekhyun is afraid that if he says something, he’ll lose Yixing forever.

“Yeah,” Baekhyun lies, shaking his head to distract from his cracking smile. He runs his hand through his hair, trying to focus away from the thumping of his own heart. “No, it’s fine. I’m fine. Everything is fine.”

There was a time Yixing used to be able to read between every one of his words and see the lie and understand him.

That time is gone, long and distant. Baekhyun wishes it wasn’t as Yixing stands, muttering a soft, “okay” before packing away his guitar and flashing him a soft smile. It’s gone as Yixing doesn’t see that he’s lying, that he’s not okay. That he hasn’t been really okay despite lying to himself for five years.

Telling himself over and over and over that he was okay when he wasn’t.

It isn’t until Yixing is gone, closing the door softly behind him and telling Baekhyun he’d catch up with him later, that Baekhyun lets himself go. 

It isn’t until he’s under the shower spray with the water beating down on the back of his neck, his breathing the only thing in his ears, that he can calm down enough to stop shaking. The warm water against his skin is comforting in ways that simply moving couldn’t give him, allowing his head to slowly clear.

The smart thing to do would be to stick to what he was sent here to do. The smart thing would be to use this level of comfort Yixing has redeveloped with him and coerce him to come back to JYE with him as a new contracted artist. The smart thing would be to ignore himself, to put it all aside and focus on the professional.

The problem is Baekhyun is known for not doing the smartest thing.

Like falling in love with a young man when his family threatened to disown him for doing something so wrong.

Like contacting with Taeyeon when Yixing hadn’t given him a decision yet to say they would sign with JYE.

Like letting Yixing walk away and tell him no when it had been everything they worked for.

Toweling his hair dry, Baekhyun allows himself a moment to just sit before he opens his computer to see what new thing Junmyeon is going to badger him about today. He’s exhausted, and though he knows putting off really doing anything and letting this linger in statis isn’t helping things, he’s not inclined to ‘just deal with it.’

Opening up his account, he sees Junmyeon online on the company chat program, and almost immediately gets a message from him.

_Call me. Now._

Baekhyun almost considers typing back that Junmyeon could just call him, then he catches the blinking light his phone. He isn't sure when he silenced it last night, but there are about five missed calls from Junmyeon.

Sighing, he lifts the phone to his ear. Junmyeon answers almost immediately.

“Baekhyun!”

“So demanding, Junmyeon,” Baekhyun half coos into his phone, leaning back in his chair. “Goodness, one might even go as far as to get ideas about your persistence.”

“Shut the fuck up.” Junmyeon’s near snarl has Baekhyun snapping his mouth closed. Junmyeon must be angry for him to sound like this. He hears him let out an angered sigh through the phone. “You haven’t even seen yet, have you?”

Blood going cold, Baekhyun licks his lips, trying to push down the rising fear creeping up the back of his neck. “Seen what?”

“There’s a video of you,” Junmyeon says, speaking through grit teeth by the sound of it. Baekhyun frowns. “It was posted last night and was you and Lay singing in some sort of open mic.”

Baekhyun’s skin goes cold. “What?” He feels like an idiot now, for doing the performance when he’s supposedly off stage entirely, off the radar out here doing recruiting work and on ‘vacation’. According to the changes in his contract, he’s not supposed to be performing at all.

“Some kid took a goddamn video of you and Lay with their phone and you-“ Junmyeon lets out an angered breath. “Baekhyun, the way the two of you look it’s-“

“Can’t you get it removed?” Baekhyun says, his fingers gripping his phone too tight as he keeps his voice level. “You’ve done that before. You know, taken down videos because they violate stuff or put the artists in jeopardy? You did it before when I-“

“That’s not the _point!_ ” Junmyeon half yells and Baekhyun snaps his mouth shut. It might not seem like a bad thing, singing for open mics, considering he used to perform.

Baekhyun figures if it had just been a simple video leak of him singing last night, it wouldn’t be such a big deal.

The issue is Baekhyun remembers how he felt last night, and he remembers looking at Yixing and basking in the smile on his face. He remembers feeling so full and happy it was like he himself made up the spotlights shining on him.

He remembers that last night, both of the things he loves in life were put before him and he did nothing but love them.

Baekhyun was never known for being able to mask his emotions that well, letting them play over his face as easily as scrawled ink.

Over the phone, Junmyeon lets out a long sigh. Baekhyun can almost picture him pinching the bridge of his nose as he tries to keep himself composed. “Your job isn’t to go and play with your old boyfriend back home, Baekhyun,” Junmyeon tells him with a tone so even and calm Baekhyun knows Junmyeon is just barely holding back from yelling at him. “We spent _years_ on this, on you. You’re where you are right now because you told me you wanted to be here, helping mentor people, and Yixing isn’t the same person who you were with back when you joined this company.”

Junmyeon is right. He’s not the same. But Baekhyun is still in love with him. He bites his lip.

“It’s just one video,” Baekhyun says, and tightens the hand not holding his phone into a fist. He can feel the familiar anxiety creeping up his spine, but he’s been so trained to keep it out of his voice, he sounds completely normal. “It’s not like they can prove anything from one open mic show where I sang some songs with my future mentee.” He can hear Junmyeon suck air through his teeth, obviously not pleased with him. “Look, take down the video. I promise, it’s nothing.”

“You looked-“ Junmyeon beings but Baekhyun chokes out a laugh to cut him off.

“I looked like I was getting along with him, like old friends and more people will talk about what Baekhyun is doing with ‘Lay’. What it might mean. More people will wonder if we’re going to start working together.” He’s convincing himself as much as he is Junmyeon, closing his eyes to calm his heart. “It’s press, Junmyeon. It’ll make it easier for us when Yixing _does_ join with us. Half our promos will be done for us.”

“Are you telling me that’s why you did the open mic and broke your contract Baekhyun?” Junmyeon’s voice is low.

“It’s all part of my master plan,” Baekhyun replies with confidence in his voice he definitely doesn’t feel. Right now, his plan has kind of been shot to shit, complicated by himself. “Trust me on this. Please, Junmyeon.”

For a long moment, there is silence on the other end, and then a long drawn out sigh. “Don’t mess this up,” Junmyeon tells him. “I hope you know what you’re doing, Baekhyun.”

“Have I ever let you down?” Baekhyun asks Junmyeon, taking some of the confidence in his own voice and using it to strengthen his own resolve. He opens up a new tab on his web browser, going to youtube and grimacing a little when the video Junmyeon mentioned shows up almost immediately.

“I think you’ve let yourself down more than you’ve let down anyone else,” Junmyeon says, sounding tired. Baekhyun stills, his breath caught as his eyes widen, staring at the captured image of himself and Yixing from last night and Junmyeon’s words sink against his ear. “Call me tomorrow. With good news, please.”

“And miss all the exciting sounds you make when it isn’t?” Baekhyun quips back, and lets himself smile as he hears Junmyeon huff at him. “Tomorrow then.”

“Good luck, Baekhyun,” Junmyeon says, and there is just a sliver of fondness in his voice.

The video online has Baekhyun’s hands curling into fists as he presses his mouth to them, watching himself. He can see why Junmyeon was upset. Looking at himself, he wonders if everyone in the coffee shop noticed, and wills his stomach to stop clenching.

Baekhyun knows what people in love look like. He remembers what he looks like when he is, the old videos online proof enough without the few photographs he’s kept through the years. Last night, it had shown so bright on his face.

Trying to calm down the slight nervous thrum in his body, Baekhyun makes about cleaning up the unit. Picking up laundry that he hasn’t taken care of yet to take to the cleaner later and addressing the dishes in his sink. He sends a few messages to Chanyeol about suggestions for Joy, the back of his mind turning slowly with what to do next.

So far, the main thing he settles on is staying with Yixing, hoping that somehow he’ll change his mind and reconsider. Baekhyun can ignore his own feelings for a bit, at least until he figures out how to deal with them properly, pushing aside the hope that had flickered when he watched Yixing in the video and seen the look on his face.

Baekhyun almost dares to contemplate it, to hope.

A soft knock on his door brings his attention to it, turning with a sock in each hand. At his window, he sees Mr. Choi’s face, smiling and waving, and Baekhyun smiles back, waving him in. 

“Getting to a late start?” Mr. Choi says, glancing around at Baekhyun, who is still half dressed. “It’s almost mid day, Baekhyun.”

“I had a late night,” Baekhyun explains with a smile. “I was just cleaning up before I came in to check with you and the misses to see what you needed me to do today.”

“Out with the Zhang boy, right?” Baekhyun stills, turning to Mr. Choi slowly. Mr. Choi is smiling, no judgment in his smile or his eyes. He lets out a soft chuckle. “I saw him leaving this morning while I was out getting the milk from his grandmother. He’s the one you’re trying to get up on the big stage, right?”

“We’re just friends,” Baekhyun says, shoving the last of his laundry into a hamper to take downtown later. “Stayed up a bit too late to play some music.”

“I heard about the session last night,” Mr. Choi comments, stepping to the side as Baekhyun bundles up the hamper into his arms. The air is warm outside, not too hot but the sunlight makes Baekhyun squint still. “Down at that new café that the boys opened up, if I’m not mistaken.”

“The same,” Baekhyun says, hoisting the hamper a bit higher as he makes for his car. It’s lazy but he’d rather not lug two weeks of laundry with him to the Laundromat. “Did you go?”

“And old man like me?” Mr. Choi laughs and Baekhyun has to smile at it, sounding so full. “No, I just heard about how you were the guest star of the night.”

“Did Yixing tell you that?” Baekhyun asks, reaching down to pop his trunk.

“No, your father did.” 

Baekhyun drops the hamper. “What?”

“He called earlier,” Mr. Choi says, a small frown between his brows as he watches Baekhyun ignore his spilled clothing. “Said he wanted to talk to you. Seems he didn’t know you were back.”

Baekhyun feels numb.

♭

Five years ago, Baekhyun ran from home, ears ringing and his shoulder aching as it had nearly been ripped out of its socket. He ran until the tear tracks down his face were dry and salted on his skin, until the air burned his throat and didn’t stop until he was vaulting a familiar white picketed fence and tumbling through an open window. The lace curtains had fluttered, and he’d hit the floor with a pained yelp on his injured shoulder, shaking terribly in anger and fear as he’d jarred himself into choked sobs.

It had been only calmed down after he’d been pulled onto a bed with a familiar bedspread and his face was pressed into the curve of Yixing’s neck. It took over an hour before Yixing had been able to get words out of him, running his hands up and down Baekhyun’s back to soothe some of the pain away.

Five years ago, Baekhyun had told Yixing he was never going home again, his eyes on his fingers as they twisted in the hem of Yixing’s sleep shirt. Yixing hadn’t asked, and Baekhyun fell asleep scared that he’d be ripped away and dragged back into Hell.

It’s been five years, and this time Baekhyun is without injury as he runs, the hot air sticking to his skin. He still ends up slamming his shoulder into the floor as he tumbles through the open window, yelping loudly. Heart beating wildly in his chest as he pushes himself up, breathing ragged, and sees Yixing’s shocked look from the bed where he’s sprawled with his guitar.

“We have a door, you know,” Yixing says, watching him in bewilderment as Baekhyun pushes himself to stand. “Though you never really used it before, so I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.” He’s watching Baekhyun carefully, and Baekhyun’s skin races from adrenalin and having that focus so strong on him.

It probably wouldn’t be appropriate to push himself into Yixing’s arms right now, burying his face into his bare collarbones and breathing in the scent that always clings to his skin. Soft and warm and kind as Baekhyun clings.

Definitely not, appropriate, which is why Baekhyun instead pushes himself onto the bed beside Yixing, feeling eighteen and with the overbearing shadow of his family. Yixing’s expression turns concerned as he puts his guitar to the side and turns to prop himself up beside Baekhyun.

Closing his eyes and swallowing, trying to slow his breathing and heart down from their rapid pace, Baekhyun wets his lips. “My father was at the open mic last night,” Baekhyun says, voice scratchy from running two miles to get to Yixing’s. “He called the Inn this morning looking for me.”

Opening his eyes, Baekhyun sees a contemplative look on Yixing’s face, his eyes drifted down to the center of Baekhyun’s chest. “So he knows you’re home then,” he says quietly. “Did you talk to him?”

“No,” Baekhyun says, swallowing down the ache in his throat. He shouldn’t be here, not like this.

“It might be easier if you did,” Yixing says, and Baekhyun stiffens. Yixing is frowning now, eyes fixed unseeing somewhere around Baekhyun’s hip. “It’s been five years since you last saw them, and maybe-“

“Maybe what?” Baekhyun cuts out, a cold twist sinking into his skin. “They’ll suddenly decide that they can have me under their roof without trying to beat the sin out of me?”

Yixing flinches at that, grimacing and pulling away. The anger in Baekhyun is lit though, and it gives him the strength to push himself up, off the bed, to step into the room. The cold flashes to heat, building low in his gut and crawling. “They’ve wanted to see you, you know.”

“Well too fucking bad,” Baekhyun snaps. He hasn’t been angry in so long, and it’s not directed at Yixing, it’s just… Baekhyun has never been allowed to be angry at people, and Yixing always let him have whatever feelings he had. Anger, sadness, love, happiness. “They made it pretty damn clear the last time I saw them that their lives would be better if I was dead or something.”

“People say and do stupid shit,” Yixing says, his voice taking on an edge. “Your family isn’t exempt from that, and they may not be the greatest people, but when I’ve talked to them-”

“They what?” Baekhyun snaps, turning to fix Yixing with a hard look. “Asked for a second chance with you? Because they thought maybe some things can be forgotten? They can be forgiven? Life isn’t nice like that. They taught me that real early.” His throat aches, tight and stiff and he can feel the heat of anger rushing up his neck, burning him red.

The same choking feeling that he’d felt every time he went home, the life stifled from him. Squeezing around his throat mercilessly like a collar leashed to an abusive master.

Five years is a long time, but it’s not enough time for some wounds to heal. Wounds that kept getting cut into him for many more years, making him worthless and disgusting, something that he learned through recovery to understand wasn’t true.

“They just want to see you,” Yixing says softly. The quiet tone has Baekhyun’s anger trembling before it crashes, leaving him weak and hollow, the power behind him gone and sadness and pain rushes in to replace it.

“I can’t see them,” Baekhyun says, voice shaking.

“Why?” Yixing asks imploring Baekhyun to be honest. “What’s stopping you?”

The same reason Baekhyun scratched out every preview of interview questions that touched on his family for his television specials. The same reason Baekhyun would calmly reply “next question” when the cocky interviewers would try to rile him up on stage, fingers stiff in his lap.

“That night,” Baekhyun says, hating how raw he feels. “That night when I swore I’d never go back to them and you told me you would give me a home instead.” Yixing’s eyes flicker and he nods slowly.

“You never told me why,” Yixing quietly answers.

“They disowned me,” Baekhyun says, and the crawl up his throat digs in with wanting to break him. Just like it had then. “Not officially, but enough to make sure I knew I wasn’t a part of their family.” Yixing’s eyes are wide, and Baekhyun’s hands shake at his sides, a burn behind his eyes. “I told them I was in love with you, and they told me I wasn’t their son.”

“They…” Yixing’s eyes are too pained to look into, and Baekhyun shifts his gaze to the floor.

“I was always envious of you,” Baekhyun says, a bitter weight to his voice. “You had a family that loved you, supported you and still does. Your parents never told you that you were filthy because you fell in love with the wrong person. Your grandparents never told you there was something wrong with you to your face daily. Never made you scared to come home or fall asleep just because you breathed.”

Yixing’s voice is soft, reverent when he speaks. “No,” he says, and Baekhyun closes his eyes. “They didn’t. I never went through what you did.” His voice wraps around Baekhyun, and it’s too selfish to want comfort. “I just knew that I was lucky, and you weren’t.”

“I don’t care if they want to talk to me, I don’t give a damn,” Baekhyun says. He hasn’t told anyone this, not Yixing, not Junmyeon, none of the drunk hookups he had where gentle young things would ask him. It feels good to say it, like sucking poison from him. “I don’t want to go near them.” It tightens, and Baekhyun takes in a shaking breath. “Not now, and not ever again. There isn’t anything you can say to convince me.”

For years, Baekhyun was sick with the thought of telling someone about this. It was never official, but to Baekhyun, it was as good as a stamp on his skin marking him as unwanted and rejected. He hadn’t wanted to show anyone that part of himself, never feeling strong or safe enough to share.

Five years ago, he’d still been terrified his father would come storming into Yixing’s room and rip him from the bed, slamming him against the wall bellowing reprimands. Saying it then made it real and he wasn’t strong enough for it to be.

Maybe, if JYE had done what they initially proposed and taken both himself and Yixing and Baekhyun hadn’t been faced with a second coming of it, he’d have told him sooner. But the world is filled with ‘maybe’s and ‘what if’s and he can’t hold onto them. They don’t hold back.

“Is that why you agreed to the deal?” Yixing asks him, and Baekhyun grimaces.

“Yes,” Baekhyun admits, and he can hear Yixing intake a sharp breath. “I took the second deal because I knew that as much as we thought we could, that in the end it would never be a secret. I was afraid of losing you and also that people would hate us.” He opens his eyes, looking around a room that he felt safe in, his ‘home’, and seeing the music stuck to the walls. Happiness he lost. “I never wanted you to feel that hate.”

“You selfish shit,” Yixing says under his breath. Startled and feeling his anger flare again, Baekhyun turns sharply to stare at him. “That’s the reason you said you’d rather be stifled and closeted instead of actually together on stage than leave it all together and try again? Because you were scared for _me_?” He laughs and it’s lifeless and bitter. “You didn’t do that for me, you did that for yourself. Don’t bull shit me.”

“And what, you would have just come back home and tried again?” Baekhyun fires back.

“Yes! And I did, I tried to.” Yixing stands up, and presses his lips together hard, eyes boring into Baekhyun. “I would have come back home and regrouped and we’d have tried again.”

“I didn’t have a home!” Baekhyun shouts even as he doesn’t mean to. “I couldn’t-“

“You did!” Yixing snaps. “You had one here! With me! I never lied to you and told you things I didn’t mean. I kept my promises and meant almost everything I said.” He pauses for a heated breath. “I couldn’t have done what you were happy to settle with. I didn’t want to just settle. I didn’t want to do it without you. That’s why I-”

Yixing cuts himself off, and Baekhyun’s heart stops in his chest, staring at him with stunted breaths. “Why what?” Yixing doesn’t look at him, turning away and Baekhyun wants to reach out and grab him. Pull the answer from him that he’d been stuck at since Yixing left and Baekhyun couldn’t breathe properly until he’d seen him again. “Why you what, Yixing? Why you left and told me you didn’t want any of it when you clearly-” Baekhyun gestures angrily to the room, the recording equipment and the walls of music, “-do want it.”

“I want to do music because I love music,” Yixing says, and his voice is hard. “I left because I wanted to still do music, and I wanted to do it with you. You made the decision to close down and do what you were told and now you’re back after I accepted I’d never see you again.” He fixed Baekhyun with a hard look. “So why are you here, Baekhyun?”

“To see you,” tumbles out of him in a loud and emotional rush. It aches to say it but it’s true from every perspective. He’s here to see and be with Yixing, initially because Junmyeon sent him. He’s here now, in Yixing’s room with his hands shaking and feeling the burn of tears in his eyes because he wants Yixing. He’s here because he’s selfish, because he wants Yixing and that never changed no matter what he told himself. 

Not matter how much he ignored it, it never changed.

“Not to ask me back into a music world where even you can’t remember who you are?” Yixing presses, and there is a shake in his voice now. He’s stepped closer and Baekhyun wants to reach out and close their distance.

This isn’t about his job anymore. This isn’t about Baekhyun getting Yixing to work with him and adopting him as his mentor. This is about how Baekhyun let Yixing go five years ago and regretted it every day since, wanting a second chance.

“No,” Baekhyun says. The force of his voice has tears running down his face. He always hated crying, and it was always only okay to cry with Yixing. To let go and relax. “I’m here because of you. Because even when it wasn’t about you, it was. I’m trying not to fuck up this time, and I don’t care if you don’t love me back anymore. When have I pressured you in the past month to join the damn company? I haven’t!”

He drags the back of his hand furious over his face, wiping away the water that blurs his vision and clogs his voice. 

“Five years ago I was young and scared and confused and I’ve spent the last five years regretting not following you and forcing myself to forget why I fell in love with you. It’s barely been a month but I can’t think of a time or a place where you weren’t the only thing that could make me smile and forget about all the bad things in life for just a moment and I’m sorry.”

“For what?” Yixing’s voice draws shivers over Baekhyun as he looks at him and doesn’t have a shred of judgment in his eyes.

“For letting go of you in the first place and coming back and expecting things to be okay.” Baekhyun’s hands are still shaking as he uses them to hastily wipe away more tears. He hasn’t cried like this for years. Not in front of people and especially not so shaken. He didn’t mean to get into this, to tell Yixing all of this, but now it’s out of him he never wants to take it back.

Spending all his years and time hiding from the things he cares about is exhausting, suffocating, and Baekhyun yearns to be free.

“Did you really regret it that much?” Yixing asks, and as close as he is, Baekhyun is scared to reach out. Still scared even after all he’s said, feeling raw and exposed and vulnerable.

“Yes,” Baekhyun says with feeling. “I did. I regretted it, and have regretted it. I’m sorry I didn’t know what to do back then, but I’m not sorry for being here now.” It’s not going to change, and Baekhyun is so tired of running from things he’s too scared to want. “I’m tired of regretting it, and I’m not here to use you, or to try to trick you.”

“Years ago, you told me that this would also be my home, and it’s always been a place that has been more home to me than any other place I’ve know.” His words are shaking, but Baekhyun lets them go. They’ve been held back for too long. “I came here, _here_ , not anywhere else because it still is home for me, because you’re here, and with you, I’m okay.”

Vision still blurred from tears, he takes in a deep shuddering breath. “I want to stop running from the things I’m scared of, and the things I want just because I don’t know if I can have them. I hate hiding from the things that make me happy and I’m sick of lying to you and myself that I don’t love you anymore.” Baekhyun can’t stop crying, years and years of tears kept in him.

Tears held back that never really go away, they just wait for when they can be let out and their pain seen.

“I’m sorry it took me so long to remember how much I wanted not to lie, how much this all meant to me and what it would mean to let it go and stop running away from you.” The words scald as they pass and leave him tired, shaking and worn, finally getting out what he’s been holding for so long. “I’m sorry for-“

The words never finish, instead dissolving into sounds as Yixing reaches out and gently pulls him to him. The gesture has Baekhyun stumbling forward, his hands rising immediately to fist in the back of Yixing’s shirt, clinging to him and just finally letting go. “It’s okay,” whispers into his hair as Baekhyun fits just as he always did into Yixing. “You’re not running anymore. I’m here.”

“I know,” Baekhyun says amid his stifled cries, holding on and finally letting himself. He’s shaking, but it’s less from feeling too much and instead in the release. In having Yixing there and not pushing him away. “I know, and I’m sorry and I’ll understand if you don’t feel-”

“Calm down,” Yixing tells him, hushing his words. “You’re speaking a mile a minute and most of it mixed in with tears.” His voice is strained, and Baekhyun can feel wetness at the nape of his neck. Yixing is crying too.

Ironically it makes him cry more, the realization a relief as he holds tighter. Baekhyun had forgotten what it felt like to have a soft place to land, and to hold back just as tight as he holds.

“Besides,” Yixing adds, turning his head so he speaks into the curve of Baekhyun’s shoulder. “I’d have pushed you away weeks ago if I didn't still miss you.” Baekhyun coughs a laugh between tears. “I have all your damn albums for crying out loud.”

“That just means you like my music,” Baekhyun says hoarsely, eyes closed as he keeps Yixing in his arms. He can breathe, and thought it hurts, just being able to without feeling like he has something holding him back by the throat is worth it.

“Nah,” Yixing says, pulling Baekhyun just a bit closer. “I listened to it because there were nights I couldn’t sleep without hearing your voice close to me.”

This time, when Baekhyun cries, it’s not for sadness or pain. It’s because he’s happy.

♭

Baekhyun has no idea if Junmyeon calls him the next morning. He has no idea if Chanyeol has sent him a new email and his alarms don't drag him to hit the snooze button three times before he rolls out of bed. Instead, Baekhyun wakes up in sheets smelling of chamomile and cotton and warm, having slept better than he has in ages. He doesn’t pull away this time, instead snuggling closer to the warmth that’s tangled up with him, a smile stretching over his lips.

It’s been so long since he’s woken up like this, content and warm and truly happy. His mouth tastes like he’s just licked tarmac, but he’s happy. There is a cramp in his leg, caught around another, and he’s happy. His nose is practically in Yixing’s armpit, but he’s happy.

Half awake and groggy, he lets out a contented sigh, feeling Yixing turn against him until he’s pulled Baekhyun completely into his arms. “I missed this,” Baekhyun speaks into Yixing’s collarbones.

“I missed you,” Yixing’s breath ruffles Baekhyun’s bed mussed hair. Baekhyun smiles. 

Walking out into the kitchen, wearing a borrowed shirt from Yixing, Baekhyun smiles sheepishly at Grandmother Zhang as she looks up from the sink. It’s been so long since a morning like this happened, but the same bright and delighted smile lights up her face. “It’s been a while since I saw you trapesing your tired feet into my kitchen,” she says, and approaches him with open arms, pulling him into a warm hug.

She’s frailer now, her body old and thin, and Baekhyun has to bend a bit to return the hug. It’s warm though, just as she had always been, her arms holding him and smelling of soap and the outdoors. He smiles, biting back the tears that seem to never want to stop since last night. “Good morning, Grandmother,” he says, voice still groggy with sleep and it feels so nice to say this again.

She smiles, her old eyes crinkling until they’re tiny glints in her wizened face as she cups his face with her soft wrinkled hands. “Sleep well, did you?”

“Like a dream,” Baekhyun tells her, and she laughs, patting him on the cheek a few times.

Without being allowed to refuse, Baekhyun is seated down at the table, given a cup of tea. Grandmother Zhang chatters away, asking him questions like she’s only just seen him the other day. Like it was only yesterday Baekhyun was spending nearly every night in her house, under her roof, in her grandson’s bed. She’s always been warm, and Baekhyun always felt more welcome by her than in most places.

Not once did she ever turn him away, and she’s always had a bright quick humor about her that she and Baekhyun thrived on. She always throws jokes and teasing at him, and her eyes glimmer in amusement as he replies back just as fast.

“You know, Baekhyun,” Grandmother Zhang says as she pours pancake batter into a pan. “I know it was fun when you still were in high school, but really, we do have a door. I swear, I almost thought we were being robbed in mid day yesterday.”

“Old habits die hard,” Baekhyun says with a guilty smile. 

“Oh, you needn’t tell me,” she laughs. “Do you have any idea how long it took my husband to quit smoking?”

Smiling, Baekhyun asks, “how long?”

She grins, winking. Baekhyun almost jumps when a pair of hands rests on his shoulders, smoothing down just a bit and squeezing gently. He smiles, letting his head tilt back and press into Yixing’s stomach. “Until he died,” Yixing says and his grandmother scoffs at him, narrowing her eyes before turning to flip the cakes.

“Don’t spit such rubbish,” she scolds, throwing a look at her grandson over her shoulder as Yixing laughs quietly. Baekhyun feels it, quivering into him and his smile widens. “Though it may as well be true, with how he went on about how much he missed it after I got him to stop. You know what he did when the doctor told him to quit or he’d die?”

“Chewed gum?” Baekhyun suggests, glancing up as Yixing steps from him to go help his grandmother with the cooking.

“Goodness no, he barely had a tooth left in his mouth to contend with gum,” Grandmother Zhang laughs. “He cut out magazine advertisements and made collages.” Baekhyun laughs and she catches his eye, winking again. “You can go check the main room to see if I’m lying. We framed a few of them. Well, Yixing did.”

“I insisted,” Yixing says, and smiles as he gets down some plates from the cupboard. “They’re art. He could have sold them.”

Grandmother Zhang scoffs into laughing, easily serving up the pancakes and patting her grandson to go sit down and get some food in him.

Baekhyun falls into laughter as Yixing, with barely anything left on his plate, takes instead to trying to feed Baekhyun, going as far as to mime and letting out little “ah~”s as Baekhyun fends off the fork. “I’m full,” Baekhyun tells him, trying to push away Yixing’s fork and not accidentally get pancake and syrup on the table.

“Fine,” Yixing says, pulling away finally. “Not my fault if you go hungry later.”

“I’ll just have to take you out for lunch then,” Baekhyun says, grabbing his and Yixings plate and walking to the sink. It’s nice, after the storm of yesterday, it’s so calm, and it’s like there isn’t anything wrong. As if a weight is gone from him that he’d never realized he’d been carrying around.

“It’s almost eleven,” Yixing says from the table as he watches Baekhyun clean up.

“Dinner then,” Baekhyun says.

For a moment, Yixing looks like he’s seriously considering turning down Baekhyun’s offer. He squints. “I knew it,” he says. “You’re trying to buy me.”

Baekhyun throws the sponge at him, laughing.

Mr. Choi smiles at him when he drops by with the groceries that he usually picks up for his landlords. He spends most of the day in the south area of the town, visiting some of his old haunts, and ends up hanging out with Sehun and Amber. Jongin has supposedly taken the day off to look after his nieces while his parents are out of town.

It’s close to six when he’s strolling down the main street in the gleaming rays of the late afternoon sun. There are probably messages from Junmyeon on his phone and on his computer, but Baekhyun finds himself not caring at the moment. The paperwork for Joy he can get in by the next Monday, on schedule.

As for Yixing, he’s still trying to figure out what to do. He pushes it to the back of his thoughts easily when Yixing steps out of the music shop and turns to him. “Are you actually taking me to dinner?” Yixing asks him, tugging at the collar of his button down. He never liked things around his neck, preferring the low shirts and freedom around his skin. Loose and comfortable. “I didn’t think you were serious earlier.”

“Absolutely serious,” Baekhyun tells him, briefly grabbing him by the crook of his arm and turning him easily to walk with him. “I’m always serious. No funny business at all with me.” Yixing lets out a soft chuckle and elbows him. “Plus I’ve got a lot to make up for.”

“Oh?” Yixing asks, turning to him, eyebrows raised inquisitively as his eyes widen almost comically. “Like what?”

“All the dates I should have taken you on. All that time I lost,” Baekhyun says. It’s easier now, to say things like this. It’s so easy to just slip into how it used to be, teasing and joking and comfortable together. Except now, Baekhyun doesn’t feel restricted to hidden spaces and Yixing’s room.

Yixing stops walking, his face falling into seriousness and Baekhyun turns to him. Yixing wets his lips, staring at Baekhyun like he’s not sure if he understands him correctly. “This isn’t about ‘should have’s or ‘would have’s. I don’t want to stay in the past and-“

“It’s not that,” Baekhyun tells him, stepping closer to him and letting his hand drift down to gently ghost his fingertips over the back of Yixing’s hand. “It’s not about what should have been, it’s about me, wanting to take you to dinner, because I want to have dinner with you.” He smiles, and Yixing softens. “I promise I’ll pay for both of us.”

Yixing laughs, and for a brief moment, Baekhyun thinks he’ll take his hand, slip their fingers together and lock them. He doesn’t but he does walk up close to Baekhyun and let their shoulders brush. “How generous.”

“It’s because I like you so much,” Baekhyun says. “Makes me do crazy things.”

“Like climb through my window instead of using a door.”

“No, I’ve always just done that because it’s fun,” Baekhyun says with a grin and Yixing laughs.

There is little in this world that Baekhyun loves as much as he loves hearing Yixing laugh and knowing he caused it. Yixing lights up when he laughs, smile wide and eyes shining. Baekhyun smiles back, relaxed and easing into this, into them.

It’s not like a nervous first date, because Baekhyun knows Yixing’s hobbies and likes and dislikes. Yixing knows Baekhyun’s stories from high school because he was with him, and instead they spend the time truly filling in the gaps over lightly touching toes and soft candlelight. The history that they’d missed of each other, briefly explained and new stories told. 

The friends they gathered in the time apart, Yixing laughing and bright eyed at stories of the other singers Baekhyun knows and works with. He nearly chokes on his wine when Baekhyun tells him how he’s friends with Zitao, and learns Yixing is a small fan of the young actor.

“You can’t be jealous though,” Yixing tells him as he sets down his glass. “You’re not allowed to be jealous.”

“I’ll just tell Zitao the next time I call him,” Baekhyun says and Yixing’s cheek flush. “It’s his ass, isn’t it?”

“I promise, yours is still my favorite,” Yixing tells him and Baekhyun’s cheeks heat, his lips curling up. He bites his lip as he meets Yixing’s eyes. Yixing gives him a sincere look. “It’s just really cute.”

“What about the rest of me?” Baekhyun asks.

“The rest of you got less cute as you grew up,” Yixing tells him and Baekhyun mock pouts at him. It makes Yixing laugh, and the dimple in his cheek presses exaggeratedly in the dim light of the restaurant. It’s almost effortless happiness, and Baekhyun wants to stay here forever.

There is none of the first date anxiety or rush of suspense when they part. It’s not the first time, and Baekhyun knows he’ll see Yixing again. Instead, it’s a soft warmth that seems to hum through him like a faint glow, lingering around him. Tender as the lingering fingertips against the palm of his hand before hushed goodnights and secretive reserves smiles were given.

It’s a smooth transition, of Baekhyun being hesitant to meld himself back into Yixing’s life, to doing it without concern. He calls Junmyeon to answer his persistent demands of whether he’s died or not and informs him that yes, he’s expired.

Junmyeon doesn’t find it as funny as Baekhyun does. He sounds skeptical when Baekhyun tells him it’s fine, that things with Yixing are going well.

Junmyeon doesn’t ask for specifics, and Baekhyun doesn’t provide them, instead ending the call to conference with Chanyeol.

“Baekhyun, you’d be so proud of our baby,” Chanyeol beams at him from the computer screen.

“I wasn’t aware you could immaculately conceive,” Baekhyun comments and Chanyeol makes a rude gesture and scrunchy face at him. “Tell me all about our little girl. Does she have your eyes or my sense of humor?”

“Neither, which I actually think works in her favor,” Chanyeol says, and a grin slips onto his lips. “Considering your sense of humor, especially.”

“Oh yes,” Baekhyun replies. “Because yours is so much better.”

“Infinitely,” Chanyeol almost purrs and Baekhyun makes a face at him. “She’s progressing really well though. She’s working with Kyuhyun at the moment, and then she’ll be back with me for the afternoon. If you’re not busy you can meet her and she’ll realize I’m the good parent.”

“You know,” Baekhyun says, leaning back into his chair. “All this talk of parenthood and I’m beginning to think you should just propose to me already, Park.”

“And take that chance away from you? Absolutely not. I may like a joke, Baekhyun, but I’m not that cruel.” Baekhyun scoffs and Chanyeol grins. “Plus, you’re taken.”

Once, Baekhyun might have squirmed at that, shut down and retreated from the conversation and any implications. He’d have ignored the topic and brushed it off. Now, he finds himself smiling, a pleasant hum that has him smile. “True,” he admits, and Chanyeol’s eyes widen just a little. “I’m sorry, but it was never meant to be for us, Chanyeol. Spare your broken heart for single men.”

“She finally wore you down then?” Chanyeol says, his grin full now and Baekhyun’s thoughts stumble to a halt.

“Sh-“ Baekhyun’s heart skips a beat. “Y-yeah,” he says, letting out a laugh that is too fast and loud. “It was only a matter of time.”

“I knew she’d end up getting out there sooner or later,” Chanyeol says with a wide grin. “I had just thought you two were, you know, on indefinite hiatus. Kind of you like you and your relationship with microphones and stalking fans.”

“Yeah,” Baekhyun says, suddenly uncomfortable with talking with his friend. “Actually, I don’t think I’ll be around this afternoon.” Chanyeol’s face falls in disappointment. “I’ll meet Joy another time. I just have a few things I need to do.”

The call ends, and Baekhyun slumps back with his hands over his face. Really, he should have been more careful, considering the whole fact that things are still running and moving without him at the company directly. In the small pocket here, he doesn’t have to remember that joking about Chanyeol’s sexuality is just something they do lightly, without any weight.

Chanyeol still thinks the reason he never could get Baekhyun on a date is because Baekhyun just isn’t interested in men, not that he isn’t interested in him romantically. He doesn’t know. Most of the company doesn’t know.

Baekhyun isn’t at the company right now though, and he’s no longer on stage in front of millions of people and flashing cameras and people who sing with him _for_ him. He sighs, letting his hands run down his face to flop into his lap.

Later. He can deal with it later.

It doesn’t change his mind or his decision. He’s not about to turn around and throw away something that finally makes him happy after years of telling himself he was happy when he wasn’t. It’s not the relationship specifically, it’s how he’s finally okay with himself.

He still has about a month.

♭

It’s not a routine, but nothing ever was a routine with them.

“Thank you,” Grandmother Zhang says as she greets him, her eyes dancing as usual as she lets Baekhyun into the house.

“I only brought the paper in,” Baekhyun says, placing said paper on the table.

“No, I mean you used the door,” she answers and Baekhyun, caught off guard for a moment, laughs. “Only took you over a decade to figure out how they work.”

“And miss the hidden surprise on your face when you would check on what the racket was and fine Yixing and I playing darts?” Baekhyun’s cheeks hurt from smiling so much these days.

“Those weren’t darts, those were weapons,” Grandmother Zhang says. “You should have asked me before you went and dug up those old nails out of the barn and glued feathers on them. You nearly took my eye out.”

“But we never did,” Yixing says, walking into the kitchen and stooping to press a short kiss to his grandmother’s cheek. “Because we love you too much to put you at that risk.”

“You mean you knew I’d smack your silly head six ways to Sunday,” his grandmother corrects, reaching up briefly to cup her grandson’s face with a fond look.

“That too,” Yixing admits and Baekhyun hides a chuckle. “Ready?”

It’s been a long time since they did this, but Baekhyun settles almost immediately back into Yixing’s room. He’s been spending a lot of time here since things restored between them. Be it playing music, singing and finally using his voice again, learning new songs and crafting a few new ones, it’s like rediscovering the world he loved and somehow forgot.

The world where he can sing without caring who is listening, where he can play with music rather than be confined by it. The world where it brings a whole other level of happiness that somehow, in the last few years, he had completely forgotten.

“Damn,” Baekhyun says, flopping back onto the bed with a disappointed sigh.

“What?” Yixing asks, leaning over him, propped on his hands and looking down at him. His hair, too long, hangs about his face and his mouth takes on a soft teasing smile, eyes bright.

Baekhyun sighs up at him, reaching up and pressing his fingers to the skin just above Yixing’s upper lip. “I forgot the mustaches,” he confesses and beams as Yixing bursts into laughter. He’s still laughing as he lets himself flop on top of Baekhyun, rolling them together on the bed.

“I think we’ll manage,” Yixing says, his dimple pressing deep into his cheek.

“We’re breaking tradition,” Baekhyun says, giving him a serious look.

“Still not the end of the world.” Yixing is half sprawled on him, their heads resting close. Yixing’s arm is trapped under Baekhyun’s head, his free hand on Baekhyun’s hip. A flutter beings in Baekhyun’s chest, and before it fades, he leans forward and presses a soft kiss to the little dent in Yixing’s cheek, pulling away with a little smile. Yixing watches him with raised brows. “What was that for?”

“It was asking me to,” Baekhyun tells him, settling back with his head pillowed on Yixing’s arm.

“I see,” Yixing says, his hand running up from Baekhyun’s hip to slip over his side, tugging him closer. “I wasn’t aware you had telepathic abilities with dimples.”

“It’s not a great superpower, so I keep it pretty quiet,” Baekhyun says and snuffles into a laugh as Yixing tumbles them over, a brilliant grin on his face as he splays Baekhyun under him on his bed.

Staring at the blinking light of the camcorder later, Baekhyun fidgets.

“I thought you were some big hot shot rock star,” Yixing says, nudging his foot with his own.

“Retired, remember?” Baekhyun says, nudging back. “Plus, camcorders aren’t a live audience. You never know who is going to be watching on the other end, and you can never read for their reaction.”

“So hope for the best,” Yixing tells him. “And remember, ‘your mom’ jokes died before we even graduated high school.” It makes Baekhyun laugh, and calms him down. The fingers that nestle with his also do that, and for a brief moment he lets himself lean and rest his head on Yixing’s shoulder, taking in a breath. “Ready?”

Yixing runs his videos differently from how he and Baekhyun used to. There isn’t much of an lead in, just Yixing introducing the video briefly and explaining who he is for new viewers. He’s almost seamless, how easily he speaks, transitioning from jokes and little quips as he talks, and Baekhyun has to remind himself to watch the recording light rather than his boyfriend.

It catches a smile to spread over his face as he word drifts through his head.

Their hands aren’t linked anymore, but the feeling is still there.

When it comes time for Baekhyun’s introduction, Yixing sails right past it, already going for his guitar and Baekhyun jumps, turning to him with an accusatory stare. Yixing looks back at him with wide eyes and Baekhyun bites down a laugh, trying to keep on a stage face.

“Oh!” Yixing says, clapping his hands together before he reaches out to throw an arm over Baekhyun’s shoulder. “I forgot about him for a moment-“

“How can you forget about me?” Baekhyun asks him, laughter leaking into his voice. “I’m literally sitting right next to you.”

“I kept waiting for you to introduce yourself and interrupt me, but you never did, so I forgot I guess and thought you had,” Yixing says, his eyes shining as they meet Baekhyun’s. “It’s your own fault, I guess.” Baekhyun can only laugh. “My special guest this week is someone I knew a long time ago. You might have seen the two of us from my really old videos, which- are they even still up?”

“They’re up,” Baekhyun says, grinning. “And it just is a reminder that you used to wear your hair in pony tails it was so long.”

“I looked good in those,” Yixing says, turning from the camera to look at him. “You said so yourself.”

“Well, at the time, you did,” Baekhyun admits. “You were also in high school and I think I had a bowl cut.”

“Ah,” Yixing says, and turns back to the camera, clapping his hands together. “So, first thing this week, is let me know which hairstyle was worse: mine back in our old videos, or Baekhyun’s compared to now?” Baekhyun can feel his shoulders shaking as he suppresses his laughter. “I will only count your answer if you say Baekhyun’s though, because even he still likes the pony tail look.”

“Only on you though,” Baekhyun says and Yixing pauses to look back at him, and the face for the camera falters for just a moment. He looks gentler, less entertaining and instead just Baekhyun’s. It has his heart fluttering again, and he just grins at the look.

It takes them at least four tries before they can get the song they’re doing to start, Yixing interrupting himself and finally Baekhyun at one point just bursting into laughter. Yixing had just stared at him, then the camera, and finally back at Baekhyun, asking him what on earth happened with his lips forming a soft pout as he speaks.

“You,” Baekhyun gives him as an answer and Yixing sniffs at him before turning to the camera resolutely.

It’s an older song from a few years ago, a cover they used to sing in their final year of high school but never had down well enough to perform it. Yixing had toyed with it over the years, and Baekhyun had dragged it out of him earlier that week. It was rough still, and half of the song they end up barely controlling their laughter. Yixing makes it especially hard as he begins to make subtle faces and Baekhyun keeps catching them, fighting down the urge to laugh mid verse.

There is one point though, when Yixing looks like he’s just spaced off entirely, mindlessly playing the guitar, and Baekhyun cracks. He laughs and the whole thing comes crashing down. Yixing turns to him looking stunned, mouth parted slightly and eyes wide. “You can’t do that,” Baekhyun tells him, knocking their knees together.

“I wasn’t doing anything,” Yixing says in mock innocence. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, you’re the one that kept laughing. I’m just the guy with the guitar.” He gives Baekhyun such a blank look Baekhyun ends up laughing even harder. “I don’t get it,” Yixing tells the camera and Baekhyun gives up, falling backwards and bouncing as his back hits the bed, hands over his face as he laughs.

“Get up,” Yixing tells him, shaking him by the knee with his hand. “Our audience is suffering because you’ve got the giggles. You’ll be renamed ‘giggles’ instead of Baekhyun, and no one could take any of your professional work seriously anymore.”

“Oh shut up,” Baekhyun coughs, finally calming down enough to prop himself up on his elbows to look at him. The camera’s red light is still blinking over Yixing’s shoulder, but Baekhyun isn’t really focused on it. He’s watching Yixing’s face, no longer blank, look back at him as he leans back over him on the bed. “Come here,” he says.

“I can’t really play the guitar all that well if I’m lying down,” Yixing informs him. Baekhyun clicks his tongue, nudging Yixing in the side with his knee and Yixing swats his thigh gently. “Fine, we’ll do it a cappella.”

Rather than settle beside Baekhyun, Yixing pushes himself back onto the bed and then turns, bracing himself so he’s just hovering over Baekhyun once more, looking down at him. “Better?” he asks, all of the staging gone from his voice and his face.

Reaching up, Baekhyun lets his hand slip to rest against Yixing’s cheek, looking up to study him for just that moment. Yixing just lets him, leaning into the touch. Wetting his lips, Baekhyun’s eyes drift to Yixing’s mouth, and he feels that flutter rise in him. Warm and soft and growing. “Come here,” he says, barely at a whisper.

Slowly, Yixing leans down, and Baekhyun closes his eyes before he feels Yixing’s lips press against his. Unhurried, he kisses back, letting his hand slip to bury his fingers into Yixing’s hair. He opens his mouth to the soft press and pull of their lips together, and sighs as the kiss deepens, following Yixing’s lips as they press to his again and again. His fingers flex in Yixing’s hair and he lets out soft moans as Yixing kisses him, taking moments to suck and nip at his lower lip.

Baekhyun finds one of his hands, and Yixing responds by lacing their fingers together, sighing into his mouth and Baekhyun pushes up into him. When he opens his eyes, he feels heady and warm, hazed from kisses. Yixing lets out a smooth breath against his skin, settling over him as Baekhyun kisses from his mouth, pressing his lips to Yixing’s skin.

Memorizing him as he once did. Over his face, along his jaw, down his neck, and behind his ear with soft touches of his lips.

Yixing lets him, and he responds to Baekhyun’s returning kiss eagerly, sinking to him and Baekhyun arches into him as their chests meet. He lets out a gasp that has Yixing pulling back, resting their foreheads together and just breathing with each other. Yixing’s eyes are hazy and dark, and his lips are bruised from Baekhyun’s mouth.

Running his fingers through Yixing’s hair, he pushes his bangs out of his eyes, his eyes flickering over his face and just basking in him. In his soft smile, the way his eyes are such a soft brown that Baekhyun has let himself drown in over and over. The slope of his nose and the fullness of his lips. The man behind all of it that Baekhyun is in love with.

He swallows.

“I think we might have to delete that video,” Baekhyun says.

“I don’t know,” Yixing replies, his eyes flickering down to Baekhyun’s mouth before he ghosts their mouths together again. “I kind of like how it ended up.”

“I wasn’t aware it was over,” Baekhyun breathes into Yixing’s mouth, pushing up slightly.

“It isn’t,” Yixing answers before kissing him again, hot and open and Baekhyun’s eyes slip closed as he lets himself get lost in the man he loves.

♭

“Are you signing?”

“No,” Baekhyun says, looking up from his notebook to the woman standing opposite him. “I’m humming. There’s a difference. One of them is with my mouth closed and the other is with it open.”

“Ah.” Jinri nods slowly as if she’s just been told a great life fact. “Thanks for clearing that up. I could never really tell the difference before.” Her eyes glint, and Baekhyun scoffs before kicking out the other chair at the small table he’s working at for her to sit.

Surprisingly, the café down town, when it isn’t hosting live shows, is pleasantly quiet. Baekhyun has been wanting to revisit it since the open mic. Heechul welcomed him instantly, swatting his hands away from the free samples. Baekhyun discovered that it’s Siwon who sneaks the cookies and treats to the customers while Heechul’s back is turned.

As Jinri sits down, Baekhyun takes a bite of his free biscotti and flashes a glance over at Siwon. Siwon gives him a little smile that Baekhyun is sure he thinks is secretive. It’s not, but it’s kind of sweet how he tries anyway. 

“To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?” Baekhyun asks, turning back to his guest.

“I was bored,” Jinri answers, stealing his coffee and smirking as she takes a sip. “The bar doesn’t open until later and I really don’t want to be exchanging gossip with Lu Han this early in the day.”

“Lu Han gossips?” Baekhyun asks, eyebrows raised.

“Well, he talks about sports and how being Minseok’s best man is going to be the most exhausting thing in his young life.” Jinri taps her nails against the side of Baekhyun’s coffee cup as she cradles it in her hands. “I thought you’d have more interesting things to talk about. Considering you’re a retired famous person.”

“I’m so glad to know it was my charming personality that brought you to seek me out,” Baekhyun says, stealing back his coffee. “Warms the heart.”

“Also, I wanted to let you know that there’s a concert at the school later this week,” Jinri adds, sitting back in her chair. “No cameras, just a sort of pre-harvest festival before we really get into October and the farms get busy. We could use musicians.” She raises her brows. “Interested?”

On the small coffee table, Baekhyun’s phone buzzes. The name _Junmyeon Office Slave_ flashes on the screen as it lights up. Baekhyun only hesitates a moment before turning his phone over.

“No cameras?” Baekhyun asks, and smiles. “Who else will be there?”

“Velveter will be there. I talked to them earlier, and Jongin and Sehun have volunteered to do a dance segment if Jongin can get someone to watch the girls,” Jinri says, brushing her hair over her shoulder. “Think you could get Yixing in on it too?”

“You mean you haven’t asked him yet?”

Jinri laughs. “He’d be more inclined to do it if you asked him,” she says. “I think he’d do most anything if you asked him.”

It spreads a pleasant tingle through him as Baekhyun sits later and muses over his brief conversation with Jinri, thinking about what she’d said. He hums gently as he outlines schedules for Joy and goes over the notes from Kyuhyun and Chanyeol, filling out paperwork and sending a few check up messages to Hwasa and Jaehyun. 

All the while, his mind spinning over the possibilities of what Jinri had said, and what it might mean for him.

What it might mean for them.

♭

It’s not that Baekhyun doesn’t like Junmyeon, he just really doesn’t want to talk to him. Junmyeon has developed this nasty habit of assuming every time Baekhyun tells him something, he’s lying to him.

Regardless of the fact that it’s partially true, Baekhyun is still slightly offended by it. Which he ensures Junmyeon knows extremely well.

Working with the Choi’s has become mostly a habit, Baekhyun running errands for them along with taking care of his own needs. He ends up visiting Minseok’s class a few times, and nearly getting roped into a workshop Ryeowook is doing with the fifth graders. Most of them don’t know who he is, and much prefer trying to get him to rough house with them than ask him to sing for them. It leaves Baekhyun light and with a fondness he’s new to, but likes.

Following the Thursday drinking nights down at the bar, with Lu Han nearly spilling every drink he serves and catching it with a cocky wink, music sessions become frequent. Whether it’s Seulgi and Irene dragging people to the park to play under the streetlamps or Amber opening up her living room, it starts a center for the small circle of people who play. Henry, one of the men who had moved into town after Baekhyun had left, ends up charming the group one evening as he pulls out a fiddle and gets them all dancing.

In most of his free time, Baekhyun spends with Yixing. Singing with him or just spending time together, teasing and doing what they used to do. It’s not as much the stupid and thrilled young love where Baekhyun was nervous to be in public, but subtler. It’s settled, where rather than nervous energy running through him, he’s able to relax just in the quiet presence of Yixing rather than feel the need to reach out and touch him to reassure himself he’s really there.

Now, Baekhyun feels like he can appreciate it. That he’s not rushing every moment on the thrill of wondering when it will end.

It’s the same with music, as the more Baekhyun eases back into it, the more he enjoys it. His voice is so different from what it was. It’s fuller, healthier and now he’s broken it out again, he can’t shut it away.

He doesn’t want to.

The pre-harvest festival takes place on a Sunday, and he and Yixing end up going as just patrons rather than performers. Jinri had given in a slightly let down pout when Baekhyun had told her, but then turned and asked Lu Han if he was up for helping her with a rock band she was trying to form. Yixing had stifled Baekhyun’s laughter with a hand over his mouth as Lu Han bewilderedly reminded her he couldn’t play any instruments. 

They end up getting pulled on stage with Wendy as she makes a guest appearance. She smiles at them both, handing Baekhyun a tambourine and telling him not to hurt himself with it, and asking Yixing if he minded using the keyboard set up. Baekhyun had almost forgotten Yixing could play the piano, most of his youtube videos of him playing guitar.

It’s a small, simple number, and most of it just has Baekhyun and Yixing fooling around on stage with the impromptu performance, chiming in on the chorus. Wendy laughs, shining brilliantly with her energy as she nods her head to the beat and sings into the mic.

It’s what he used to do, what he wanted to do, and it’s truly living to do it now. Wendy finishes with a cheer from her own voice before the audience follows, and Yixing ends up transitioning into an old upbeat song with his fingers dancing over the keyboard keys. They get the whole crowd singing, and their combined voices over the speakers thrums through the whole area.

Laughing as they step off the stage, Jongin giving him a high five as he goes up with Seulgi, Baekhyun catches sight of Yixing paused by the keyboard. He’s looking in the crowd, and following his gaze, Baekhyun stills. The broad full smile slips just a bit, and some of the glow fades.

Over by one of the vending stalls set up by the high school kids, a woman and a young man are standing together, looking around. It’s been years since Baekhyun saw them, but it’s hard not to recognize his own family. “Hey,” pulls him from his brief moment of suspension, looking through the crowd at his mother and brother as they look around.

Turning, he meets Yixing’s eyes, the poorly hidden concern in them pulling a reassuring smile over his lips, though small. “Hey,” Baekhyun says, and leans into the hand that rests comfortingly at the small of his back.

It’s a little strange seeing them. It was really only a matter of time before he’d run into them. The town isn’t that big, and the family already knows he’s here. His brother and mother don’t seem specifically out to look for anything, or anyone, instead just looking around idly.

Still, Baekhyun can’t help but wonder if they saw the performance, watched him on stage or if they ignored him, pretending he wasn’t there like they did before when he was in the same room as them. 

“Do you want to go?” Yixing asks him, stable and solid at his side. His hand slips to run in light circles on his back, looking back over at the two Byun’s standing alone. “We don’t have to stay.”

In the past, when Baekhyun had thought about the rare case scenario in which he’d run into his family again, it had always been something that sent a shock of cold through him. Where they would either completely ignore him, acting as if he was lesser than the dirt they walked on, or lash out. It had always been face to face, and Baekhyun always ended up with his arms around himself shivering in a mix of anger and fear.

A dangerous mix of hot and cold, two violent temperatures that raced through him and make him recoil.

Standing now, he looks over at the family that hasn’t talked to him since he left in the night and only went back to sneak the barest minimum of his possessions from his room. He looks over at them, and he’s not specifically angry, and it’s almost like a peaceful numbness.

He’s already cried out all his fear and pain, spent years looking back on them without any deceived idea of it being home. The falsity of family.

They don’t see him, don’t seek him out, and they aren’t hurting him now, standing in a festival in their own town. Instead, they look disconnected, standing together and Baekhyun feels nothing for them.

He can breathe.

“No,” Baekhyun says slowly, his eyes lingering on his mother and brother for just a moment longer before he turns to Yixing. He smiles, slipping his own hand to rest around Yixing’s waist, fingers pressing into his side. “No, it’s okay.” Yixing studies him, and Baekhyun leans back into his hand. “I’m okay.”

It could be better, but for now, he is okay.

“Are you sure?” Yixing asks, glancing over once more. Baekhyun lets out a soft chuckle, pulling his hand away to reach for Yixing’s hand instead, lacing their fingers together.

“They’re not bothering me, and I’m not about to go put myself in their way,” Baekhyun says. “Let’s just enjoy the festival and ignore them.” He squeezes Yixing’s hand. “I’ll let you know if I want to leave.”

Hesitating for a moment, Yixing finally sighs, squeezing back and relaxing. He’d stiffened up, and Baekhyun doesn’t miss how he’d placed himself a little in front of Baekhyun, putting himself between Baekhyun and his family. “Alright,” Yixing says.

Baekhyun watches the performance of Jongin and Seulgi tucked beside one of the food stalls. He’s just barely leaning back into Yixing’s chest, the other man standing right behind him. Between the melody and accompaniment Seulgi gives with her voice and guitar, Jongin adds to it by alternating between dance and a few added verses himself.

Silently, Baekhyun makes a note to talk to him, noticing the cadence of Jongin’s voice to match well with what Chanyeol might describe as ‘rap in the making.’ Something he’ll bring up to Chanyeol casually and see if he can entice him with another project among his ever growing list.

It’s nice to just watch from the audience, the light glow of the strung lights between the stalls and booths casting a pleasant glow in the early autumn air. Baekhyun’s fingers get sticky from the cotton candy they’d nabbed before Seulgi began playing. He grins, going between taking small tufts of it and popping it into his mouth and offering some to Yixing.

When Yixing’s lips brush against his fingers softly, Baekhyun shivers lightly, watching as Yixing’s eyes stay on him as he slowly licks his lips.

It sends a growing curl of heat in Baekhyun’s chest and below his stomach. He’s happy to reciprocate when Yixing offers him a tuft as well, letting his teeth brush against Yixing’s fingers briefly. It gets a soft laugh from Yixing and a poke in the cheek with a sticky finger.

In the shadows, no one can see when Yixing leans forward and carefully licks the sweetness from his skin. No one can see the resulting heat that paints Baekhyun’s cheeks red.

The festival itself is relatively small, and Baekhyun’s thought keep drifting back to the brief flash of his family. True, he doesn’t feel the urge to run just by having them here, but while his mother and brother might see him and ignore him, if his father is here, the same might not apply to him. Most of the booths and food carts Baekhyun and Yixing have already seen, and after a brief goodbye to what friends they see, they leave.

Overall, it had been fun. It’s been a long time since Baekhyun went to one of those festivals, or any festival really where he wasn’t working somehow. To just go and be able to enjoy the event, playing and having fun rather than running sound checks and rehearsal schedules.

“Thanks,” he says during a lull in his and Yixing’s conversation, walking back into town. Yixing looks at him in question. “For going with me.” The soft sound of their feet against the ground is the only thing around them. “For getting me back on stage, even if it’s only for a little bit. Tonight was fun.”

“You were the one that suggested it,” Yixing says, a light laugh in his voice as he steps closer, slipping their hands together as easily as breathing. For a moment, he flexes their fingers before locking them together, holding onto him. Smiling, Baekhyun lightly swings them between them, and Yixing’s cheek dimples as his eyes crease, smile in them and on his lips. “I should be thanking you.”

“Then you’re welcome,” Baekhyun replies. Yixing laughs. “To both of us.” The soft light of the lamps around them splay light down on the ground, illuminating the street, the old cracked sidewalks and the quiet streets of downtown. Almost no one is out, and the quiet and stillness almost makes it ethereal.

It makes his skin prickle gently, the air sticking to him like the sweetness of the cotton candy had before, waiting to be kisses away. It causes a warm rush over him, and he breathes in deeply.

“I haven’t heard you play piano in a long while,” Baekhyun says. “It’s nice. You’ve always been so good with it. I remember when you used to play your father’s old standing piano in the farmhouse to wake me up when I overslept.”

“It was easier than pushing you out of bed most days,” Yixing reminisces. “Much less flailing and hitting. Much more groggy you wandering into things as you came to tell me you were going to break it one day.” He lets out a soft breathless laugh. “You always would just slip onto the bench with me and fall asleep on my shoulder anyway.”

The memory plays before Baekhyun’s mind as Yixing talks about it, making him warm and hazy. Stepping closer, he shifts to lay his head on Yixing’s shoulder again, closing his eyes and letting out a sigh at the familiar feeling. He allows his hand to be released and keeps his eyes closed as Yixing’s arm wraps around him, holding him closer.

They pause, steps faltering between lamp posts and between two spreads of light, hidden and secret in themselves. Baekhyun sighs as he feels Yixing press a soft kiss to the top of his head, and he wraps his own arm around Yixing’s waist. Opening his eyes, there is no one around them. There is no hesitation as he turns then, tilting his head to face Yixing, so close to him, and his mouth spreads in a smile as he finds Yixing waiting for him.

The kiss is soft, slow, and simple. It leaves Baekhyun dazed, lips tingling even as it was such a simple kiss. His fingers curl in the fabric of Yixing’s shirt at his side, and he leans in to kiss him again. And again.

And again. 

Until he’s dizzy with it and the lamp light shines in Yixing’s eyes when he looks at him.

“I love you,” he says, and doesn’t care if it’s sudden or the first time he’s really said it flat out in those simple words. He won’t get tired of saying it, knowing the more he says it, the more Yixing may remember it’s true.

Yixing doesn’t answer, instead brushing Baekhyun’s hair from his face and kissing him again. Neither of them pull away for a long time.

Even in the darkness, Baekhyun can feel the blush on his cheeks and the hastened breaths against his skin when they finally pull away.

It leaves him buzzing, humming as his nerves seem on heightened awareness for Yixing just being near him. The places where they touch feel hot, and Baekhyun doesn’t protest to Yixing walking him home.

“Such a gentleman,” Baekhyun teases him, tugging at the collar of his open shirt.

“One of us has to be,” Yixing teases and smiles with his tongue between his teeth as he gives Baekhyun’s ass a playful little pat.

The stars shine bright tonight, the whole world seeming to be in a bit of a haze and a little too bright, shimmering just at the edges of vision. It catches the air in Baekhyun’s lungs, and he barely has a moment to breathe in before it’s being stolen again as Yixing kisses him. Winding his arms around Yixing’s neck, he lets them fall until his back his the door to his unit, fingers burying in Yixing’s hair. He lets out a soft moan as Yixing licks into his mouth and presses searing kisses down the column of his throat, burning him up from under his skin.

They weave together, Baekhyun pulling as close as he can and Yixing backing off only to dive back in. The care, patience, and almost lazy pace of touches and drags of lips over his skin have Baekhyun wanting. 

The light puffs of breath over sensitive skin make him shiver and he lets his teeth graze over the shell of Yixing’s ear as he feels Yixing’s hands slip to clasp around his backside. He moans into Yixing’s ear a moment later, rocking back into his hands and feeling his pulse throb through him, beginning to pound. 

The hard surface of the door digs into Baekhyun’s back and he fumbles for the latch, gasping at the feeling of Yixing’s thigh slipping between his own. What had started as a goodnight kiss ends with Baekhyun stumbling backwards, pulling Yixing in with him, and tugging his button down over his muscled arms. The door stays open, ignored as Baekhyun wraps his arms around Yixing, letting out a soft appreciative sigh as Yixing pulls him close. Lips on his and hands pushing up his shirt to tease against his skin, hot and sensitive, wanting more, hungry for it, and Baekhyun rocks forward.

It earns him a soft intake of breath, and he drags Yixing’s full lower lip between his teeth biting gently before sucking on it and getting a long drawn out groan.

It’s been a long time since Baekhyun had sex, limited in the city with his job and broadcasted sexuality. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to, it’s just that it got old after having nameless strangers in his bed, and even the brief instance when he and Soojung had started dating had been empty.

This. This is desire. This is his heart pounding in his chest, his breath shuddered and gasping, his skin on fire with every touch and him wanting Yixing with a building ache inside.

Yixing still knows where to touch him, where to drag his fingers along Baekhyun’s skin to get him trembling, fingers pressing in hard to the muscle of his shoulders. He knows how to slowly rock them together to get soft little sounds from Baekhyun and how to kiss him quiet, the perfect juxtaposition between intensity and reverence.

It’s when he slows, taming down Baekhyun’s seeking mouth and his hands rest to steady against his hips that Baekhyun lets out a soft whine. “Stay,” he whispers against his lips, fingers once more buried in Yixing’s hair. Turning it a mess that Baekhyun can only describe as extremely sexy on him. “I don’t want you to go.”

“I know,” Yixing says, and runs his thumbs over the soft curve of Baekhyun’s hip bones, leaning in to kiss him softly. “But I have to work early tomorrow. And you need to sleep. Don't you have a conference with Chanyeol tomorrow?”

It would be so much easier to tell Yixing that he doesn’t give a damn if he misses his conference call with Chanyeol, to drag him inside and map out his skin with his mouth. There’s a soft beep from his cell phone in the room, and Baekhyun sighs. He doesn’t uncurl his fingers yet from Yixing’s hair, leaning their foreheads together and trying to regain control of his breathing.

“I know,” Yixing says, tilting up so his lips rest against the soft skin between Baekhyun’s eyebrows. His thumbs continue to run over the curve of Baekhyun’s hips, and it makes his throat dry and his pulse thrum. “Later. Just not tonight.”

“Tease,” Baekhyun says, his voice darker and rough.

Yixing presses a kiss to Baekhyun’s forehead, holding him close and still, waiting as some of the rush abates. “Next time,” Yixing says, the words pressing into Baekhyun’s skin like a promise. “Next time, when we don’t have to worry about waking up tomorrow.”

“So you’re scheduling our sex,” Baekhyun murmurs and Yixing pulls back, laughing a bit.

Yixing’s lips are red and bruised, his skin flushed and his hair a mess. There are a few blooming red marks just barely visible on his skin, dark in the dim light. Baekhyun has wanted people before, driven with lust and desire to them. None of them have ever been able to do it like Yixing, where Baekhyun would go without sleep to have him tonight.

“Do you even have condoms and lube with you?” Yixing asks, and his hands slide to rest over Baekhyun’s shirt at his waist.

“I am amazing at improvising,” Baekhyun tells him. He’s calmed down a bit. Not enough to not want to drag Yixing to his bed and strip them, arousal high as he rediscovers all the soft way Yixing sighs to Baekhyun’s touch. “Remember, you doubted me once.”

“And you tried to use shampoo and lanolin and it was a terrible idea,” Yixing says. Then he laughs, leaning in and kissing Baekhyun, a firm and definite press of their lips. Baekhyun leans into it, eyes closing as he holds on for just a bit longer. “Go to sleep,” Yixing murmurs against his lips when he pulls away. “Dream of me.”

“Will you dream of me?” Baekhyun asks him. He finally untangles his hands from Yixing’s hair and lets his hands slide down Yixing’s chest. 

“I always do,” Yixing says and Baekhyun’s heart slams in his chest fit to break it. In a rush, Baekhyun kisses him again, leaning up and trying to put into the kiss what he can’t fit into words, the sudden surge of feelings within him. Yixing kisses him back, finally cupping Baekhyun’s face to pull away. “Good night, Baekhyun.”

“Good night,” Baekhyun whispers against his lips, heart shivering inside him.

♭

__

Baekhyun, answer your damn phone and stop avoiding me.

You do realize that the end of October is three weeks away, and so far the only report I’ve had from you is ‘I’m working on it’ and ‘I have a plan.’ I’m not telling you I don’t believe in you, I’m telling you I don’t trust you with how you’ve been acting.

If you don’t have a good explanation tomorrow for this, I’m coming out there myself.

Please tell Lay I say hello.

\- Junmyeon Kim

The email stares out from the computer sent among a slew of others that have been sitting in his inbox and on his work phone. It’s a bitter reminder amid the cheerful emails from Joy and the updates from Hwasa along with about twenty selcas a day.

Another email rests under it.

It makes Baekhyun’s stomach tie up and he instinctively draws his fingers to ghost over his throat. Invisible phantom chains that he’s beginning to feel again.

 

__

P.S. Call Soojung. Please.

The formality is just an additive, and Baekhyun can recognize when Junmyeon is giving him an order.

It’s about an hour away from his conference call with Chanyeol and Joy, where he’ll get to finally meet to young vocalist he’s been reviewing the files and drawing up rehearsal schedules for. Stacks of paperwork and finally he gets to meet his new ‘daughter’. The only good thing aside from this mess that he’s gotten himself into.

It could be worst, technically. At least Yixing isn’t completely refusing him, both in company and in relationship. Baekhyun’s neck has a few lingering marks and he runs his fingers over them briefly, thinking.

He’s still thinking when he sits in front of his computer an hour later, showered and fresh, waiting for Chanyeol and Joy to pop up on his video chat.

Three weeks.

Less than, if he’s honest with himself. Though he’s not sure he specifically told Yixing the time constraints of his ‘vacation’, he does know that at some point, he’ll be going back to the city, to JYE, and back to work. Though he has less of a knee jerk dislike about his hometown now, he doesn’t want to stay here.

There is a good chance that Yixing would come back with him if he asked him to, though Yixing isn’t as able to just give up his family. Right now, Yixing has appeared by all intents and purposes, to be completely content to continue filming his videos and working at the music shop. There hasn’t been a moment when he’s said he wants to do something more to Baekhyun.

It’s either because he really doesn’t, or because he doesn’t want to give Baekhyun the wrong idea that he’s reconsidering his initial declination of the offer Baekhyun came to him with.

Where he comes back to JYE with him. Where Baekhyun is his mentor, with him almost all the time, practically living with him, much like how there was hardly a day that Junmyeon didn’t see Baekhyun in his underpants. It never seemed to phase him, just barging into Baekhyun’s room when Baekhyun was hung over and not in the mood. It never hindered Junmyeon’s ability to read schedules at him like a demonic relentless robot.

If Yixing comes back with him, Baekhyun would be able to be with him almost constantly. He’d be with him for his music, for his development on an image and concept. He’d be there to help him with the interviews, at his side always.

They’d be together.

Baekhyun tugs at his lower lip absently with his fingers, frowning at the still waiting screen on his laptop. It’s not ideal, considering that he highly doubts that Junmyeon, let alone the rest of the higher ups at JYE, will be overjoyed at Baekhyun and Yixing dating.

They’d probably have to lie, and create a cover story for it, but…

They could do it. 

Yixing could get on stage, finally singing and sharing his music with the world, reaching out to people through song and giving his love of music to others. Baekhyun would be here, helping him do it. They wouldn’t both be on stage, but right now it’s the best option they’ve got.

They could do it.

It wouldn’t be easy, the first step being coercing Yixing to come back with him, showing him that this _was_ a way for them to do it. To stay together and do what they love.

It’s not impossible…

The computer blips, and Baekhyun shakes himself from this thoughts, accepting the conference call. Immediately, a shriek blasts through the speakers, and the blurred pixels show frantic movement frozen by a lag as the call loads.

“I really hope that was you shrieking, Chanyeol,” Baekhyun says, smiling as the image settles and Chanyeol beams out at him from the computer screen. “I always said you screamed like a girl.”

“Only around spiders,” Chanyeol says and wags his eyebrows. “I leave the screaming over you to fangirls and terrified children when they catch sight of you.”

“Hey, I’m great with kids,” Baekhyun protests.

“Only because you still are one,” Chanyeol says, sitting back. He looks exhausted, huge dark circles under his eyes, but he also looks overly happy. Like he has something he’s really excited about and waiting for Baekhyun to ask him about. “Unlike me, who is basically a model parent.”

“Whatever, dad,” Baekhyun says, blowing off Chanyeol’s self buffing comments. “What’s got you so smiles today?”

“Well, a few things,” Chanyeol says, and the adopted nonchalance does not go unnoticed by Baekhyun. “The first is that I have a special guest to show you today.” There is a soft little giggle that floats through the call, and Baekhyun bites down a grin. “The other I guess will have to wait until after that though.” Chanyeol’s face breaks into an enormous smile, the kind of smile he forgets to keep a handle on and which makes him look slightly insane. It’s Baekhyun’s favorite look on Chanyeol, working extremely well with Chanyeol’s bushy permed hair. “Ready to meet our baby?”

“Hey!” yelps a higher voice, and sudden shake to Chanyeol’s chair nearly spilling him out of it. “I’m not a baby!”

“But you’re so cute!” Chanyeol protests, craning in his chair and reaching behind it, his long arms stretching. “Come out here and meet your mom!”

“Mom?” Baekhyun says, choking on the word as a young girl, the one from all the files Junmyeon had sent to him, is tugged into view. She lets out another yelp, her face bright red and long hair swinging around her as Chanyeol pulls her in front of the camera. She looks almost comically like Chanyeol might, embarrassed but extremely excited. “So, I finally get to meet my lovely Joy.”

“Please don’t actually make me call you ‘mom’,” Joy blunders out, and then dissolves into laughter. Chanyeol grins beside her, shifting to make proper room for her in front of the computer. “I mean!” Joy flutters her hands, sitting up straight and her cheeks go even redder. “Hi! It’s really, really, nice to meet you, Mr. Byun.”

“Don’t call me that,” Baekhyun says immediately, not intending his voice to be so sharp.

Joy’s eyes go wide and Chanyeol chuckles beside her, soothing a hand over her shoulder. “It makes him feel really old when people call him that,” Chanyeol explains to her, and she relaxes in supposed relief. Baekhyun smiles at her encouragingly. She’s like a little ball of cute nerves and blushing cheeks. He can see her doing well in the industry. She’s certainly endearing.

“Extremely,” Baekhyun says, confirming what Chanyeol has said. “You can call me Baekhyun. It’s up to you what you call Chanyeol, though.” Joy smiles, and it’s cute. She’s very cute, which is not a bad thing. Baekhyun has heard her singing tracks, which is where he’ll come in somewhat once he gets back. She’s got a pretty good voice, though it could use some gentle assistance. “So Joy, aside from being a good girl and following _all_ of the training I assigned you, what else have you been working on? I know you do stuff with Chanyeol.”

“Oh!” Joy says, and actually claps her hands, turning to Chanyeol with a wide smile, her cheeks round at the apples. Chanyeol widens his eyes at her instead of saying anything and she turns back to Baekhyun with a bit of poorly contained bouncing in her seat. “Chanyeollie has been teaching me about rap.”

“R-rap?” Baekhyun stumbles, turning to stare at Chanyeol accusingly. Chanyeol looks entirely pleased with himself, down right proud if Baekhyun is frank. “You’ve been learning rap from Chanyeol.”

“Well, it’s what a lot of artists are doing now, and it’d be a great element to add into my music,” Joy says, her eyes fluttering around and Baekhyun knows _immediately_ she’s reciting what Chanyeol told her to say. He holds back a sigh.

Now Chanyeol has said it, she really may as well be their daughter. She’s got the same near intoxicating enthusiasm and optimism that Chanyeol does, but she can’t hold her expression for shit. Like Baekhyun. “I see,” he says, still staring at Chanyeol who grins shamelessly back. “And which do you prefer, Joy?”

She blinks, apparently surprised. Even Chanyeol looks vaguely surprised. “What?”

“I asked you which one you prefer between the two,” Baekhyun says slowly and clearly. This may be the first time he’s worked with Chanyeol, but he knows they have two very different mentoring styles. Chanyeol is kind of the protective indulgent big brother type, like Taeyeon had tried to be to him.

It was never Baekhyun’s style. Which he ended up, ironically, mimicking Junmyeon with. With both Hwasa and Jaehyun, Baekhyun had been companionable, joking and teasing and a bit indulgent, but mostly stricter. He’s their mentor, not their best friend.

Joy glances back at Chanyeol, as if asking what to do. What the right answer is. Good.

“I-,” she stutters, mouth hanging open and Baekhyun can see the worry flashing over her face. “I don’t know?” she answers, and gives a little shrug, shrinking back into her chair. “I like them both a lot. I love singing, I always have but I also, well, since Chanyeollie started really working with me, I like rap?”

“Okay,” Baekhyun says, and Joy blinks. “Good.” Chanyeol has one eyebrow raised, making his whole face lopsided. “Then we’ll work with it. I know initially you were set to do a cute concept, but honestly there’s enough cute transitioned to sexy acts out there. Really, there’s enough just plain sexual acts out there, and _if_ you want to do this, it’ll be a lot of work. It’ll be starting a whole new design for you.”

“I’m ready,” Joy surprises him, speaking up as Baekhyun pauses for breath. Eyes widening, he looks at her, both fists clenched in front of her and determination in her eyes. She’s got fire. A lot of cute, apparently tall, fire.

Baekhyun likes her. A lot.

He thinks briefly that he’ll have to thank Junmyeon for assigning him Joy.

“Good,” Baekhyun says, and allows his voice to be a little softer. She’s almost glowing with energy, with optimism and the idea of doing this, practically radiant with it. “I’m glad to hear it.” He smiles, less polite and far more genuine and this time Joy’s returning smile is almost blinding.

She really is aptly named. _Joy_.

“She’s a good kid,” Chanyeol sighs after Joy has wandered off, called away for voice training and it’s just him and Baekhyun. “Also, don’t tell her I told you this, but she used to be a bit of a fan of yours.”

“What do you mean ‘used to be’?” Baekhyun grumps at him.

“I mean that she likes me more now,” Chanyeol says, and laughs as Baekhyun makes a rude gesture at him in response.

“Anyway, what’s this other thing you were going to tell me?” Baekhyun prompts. The call has gone on for close to an hour and he’d like to get started on his day. Errands and faxing paperwork to the company. “Did you finally get a date?”

Chanyeol sighs heavily which tells Baekhyun that it doesn’t have to do with his romantic life. Also to please stop asking. “It’s actually kind of about Joy, well…” Baekhyun stills, sitting up to listen properly as Chanyeol’s usual joking demeanor turns serious. “I have an idea. One I’ve been working on for a while.”

“Is this a rocket ship?” Baekhyun prompts.

“No,” Chanyeol says, throwing him a look. “But it is stellar.” He grins widely at his own joke. Baekhyun just stares, holding back the laughter at the horribly lame joke. Chanyeol sighs, and the seriousness returns. “You know how I used to run the production studio back in University? Was involved in the underground music scenes there and stuff?”

“Yeah,” Baekhyun says, calling up the memory. He remembers meeting Chanyeol, in a giant almost comically emblazoned hoodie with a snapback poking out of the hood. Chanyeol’s huge grin on his face and his wide excited eyes with pants that were about seven sizes too big for his legs. “What was your name again? Park… DJ Duu B or something?”

“DuBeats,” Chanyeol says, and winces a little bit as he says it. “You know, because- never mind.” He waves his hands as if swatting away the words or memory like a swarm of mosquitoes. “The point is, I think I can do it.”

Baekhyun blinks. “Do what?”

“Start my own company,” Chanyeol says, in the softest voice Baekhyun has ever heard him use. He looks nervous, like actually admitting it makes it real. He’s been working on this for a while, from what Baekhyun remembers of that first night when it took only three drinks before Chanyeol told Baekhyun all his dreams. Apparently, those dreams never left him, just were slowly worked on until they could be realized.

Baekhyun swallows, his throat feeling slightly tight. He pushes down the urge to reach up and brush his fingers over his neck. “Seriously?”

“Yeah,” Chanyeol says in a whoosh of breath, like he’s finally letting it go. Holding it in for years, and finally letting it out. His eyes almost shine, bright and full of hope and the ability to see his success. “I finally got the basics flushed out, and found a founder who will help me get on my feet.”

“But.” Baekhyun frowns. “What about JYE?” He pushes out his lower lip into a pout, masking what his face might betray. “What about our Joy?”

“I’ll be on until I get her through, I think,” Chanyeol says, sitting back and smiling fully now. He’s calmer now he’s told Baekhyun. “I won’t be separating for a little while, but I’ll probably leave within the year, and then start up and start getting my own contracts and musicians.”

“So hip hop junkies like you,” Baekhyun says, smiling crookedly.

“Not only,” Chanyeol muses. “I want to do something where artists are completely in control of their own stuff. Most of it will work with underground artists, getting them on their feet and stuff, but I kind of just want an independent company that’s there outside of the huge corporate money mongers, ya know?”

“That’s not going to be easy,” Baekhyun tells him, sitting back in his chair.

“Life isn’t easy,” Chanyeol tells him with a light laugh. “That’s what makes it interesting.”

♭

It’s a dreary day. The first in a while that hasn’t dawned with sunshine and the soft songs of birds drifting in through the open windows. The air conditioners that do exist around town have been put away, the cooler autumn air moving in making them a waste of electricity. They’ll continue on in the city, where it’s hotter amid the tarmac and buildings, shade from trees and fresh clean breezes scarce to be found.

The morning is almost chilly, the mist from outside drifting in to creep in and over skin. Blocking the light it makes the morning drag, hang in stillness and suspension, wrapping the whole world in a soft cocoon of fog.

The chill in the air works its way into any place it can, between the cracks in the floorboards, the dried flower petals in a vase on a shelf, and tickling in the space where bare shoulders slip out of warmed sheets. The dull gray morning light coaxes to stay asleep, and rather than fight it, Baekhyun relents, wrapping his arms tighter around the warm body beside him, seeking the warmth against the chill in the room.

The sheets are tangled around him, wrapped around his legs and arms and torso in a mess, crinkled and practically tying him to Yixing’s body. They’d fallen asleep like that, a mess of limbs and skin and breathless sighs, spent and exhausted as they tumbled into bed. Waking now, his body muddled with sleep and the soft gentle ache from the night before, Baekhyun shifts closer.

Without waking, Yixing shifts, letting out a soft sound as he pulls Baekhyun into his arms, rolling until he’s holding Baekhyun and wrapped around him. Breathing him in, the scent of both of them on the sheets, and Yixing’s heartbeat against his cheek, Baekhyun doesn’t open his eyes. It’s too soft to do so, just enough that opening his eyes would bring him back to the real world.

A world where this is what he wants, but which might not be what he can have.

Breathing out, he nuzzles against Yixing’s chest, wrapping his arms tighter. Waking up like this, tangled up with Yixing and knowing that nothing can really fly in today and pull them apart. That he’ll see Yixing when he opens his eyes, see Yixing for breakfast and possibly for dinner. That he can see Yixing when he opens his eyes, kiss him without worrying about it.

Today Yixing will record another video, give another performance, and help out at the dance studio. Baekhyun has a chat with Joy and has a long probably grueling conversation with Junmyeon. The two of them doing their own pieces of music, their own work, and coming back to meld together.

Ending each night to wake up together, loving what they do and each other.

Baekhyun wants that. 

He’s wanted that for a long time. To wake up in the morning like this, without having to know that at some point, he has to leave. Whether it’s to his house or to the city in two weeks or so, he’ll have to leave where they are now.

Baekhyun doesn’t want that.

Once, they had it worked out. They had initially wanted to be like this, where they had their own schedules, working together amid it, and would live like this. Together, fighting to do what they love.

They could have had this if things had gone right.

The soft breathing from Yixing brushes the top of Baekhyun’s head, and Yixing shifts closer to him. Baekhyun opens his eyes, shifting slowly so as not to wake up Yixing quite yet.

There could be more mornings like this, where Baekhyun can lean in and press a soft kiss to the smooth warm skin of Yixing’s chest, letting his lips linger. Where he could continue a path over Yixing’s chest, his fingers stretching down in a slow crawl to Yixing’s waist under the sheets. There could have been mornings, like now, where they’d have their own bed rather than share the one in the unit Baekhyun has rented. 

It would be _their_ bed that Yixing would be stirring on with a soft hum, arching into Baekhyun’s touch as he kisses at the dip in his throat and teases his fingernails to lightly scratch over Yixing’s thigh. This is what they wanted once, and they were so close to having it.

Baekhyun wants it now, and he is sure he’ll want it in five years, maybe fifteen or twenty. He wants the forever he promised.

“Good morning to you too,” Yixing murmurs, his chest rumbling against Baekhyun’s mouth as he drags over it with his tongue. He lets out a soft delicious sigh as his fingers thread into Baekhyun’s hair. “This is a lovely way to be woken up.”

“I’d be happy to be your alarm clock from now on,” Baekhyun says as he drags back up. He bumps his nose gently to Yixing’s chin, nudging him down as his hand snakes between them to tease over Yixing’s lower abdomen, scratching through wiry curls. Yixing kisses him, slowly and sensual, tongue dragging over Baekhyun’s as he presses closer. Their chests pressed flush, he lets out a low moan when Baekhyun wraps his hand around him, stroking slow and purposeful.

“My favorite alarm,” Yixing says with a smile as he pulls away. “I will never object.”

A soft burn begins in Baekhyun’s lower stomach, different than his arousal, but just as strong. “I could wake you up every morning,” Baekhyun says, his hand working over Yixing’s cock slowly. Yixing buries his face in the crook of Baekhyun’s neck, mouthing at his skin distractingly. Baekhyun holds down his own desire to arch into the touch, and instead barrels on.

He wants this. All of it. 

Yixing hums, the sound vibrating through his chest and against Baekhyun’s neck, making him hiss. “I would wake you up nice and slow,” he continues, his voice turning breathless as Yixing rocks into his hand. “Touches that barely tease until you’re gasping awake.“ Yixing lets out another long moan as Baekhyun gives a soft twist to his hand, pausing. “Kind of like that.”

“Don’t stop on my account,” Yixing hums, his voice laced with heaviness, his eyes blown dark as he shifts to meet Baekhyun’s eyes.

“I want this,” Baekhyun almost whispers to him, leaning in so their mouths are nearly brushing. “I want to wake up with you like this, not just today, but every day.” He moves his hand a little faster, and the hitch in Yixing’s breath fuels him. “I want you with me, and we could do it.”

Yixing’s breath stutters, and he stills, his eyes flashing for a moment, locked on Baekhyun. Then he’s pulling back, cheeks still flushed but his hand closing around Baekhyun’s and stopping him. “Baekhyun, stop,” he says, and Baekhyun obeys, that insistent fire licking at his insides.

“Just think about it,” Baekhyun begins. It might work; they could have this. If they played their cards right and kept it close to the chest until things calmed down, they could do it.

Yixing’s fingers twitch around Baekhun’s wrist, like he’s about to squeeze it harder than would be comfortable. Then he sighs, and turns, looking away from him. “I told you my answer,” Yixing tells him, and his voice is no longer clogged with sleep. It’s clear and irritated. “You told me you had stopped, that you weren’t-“

“I did,” Baekhyun interrupts, pushing himself up to look down at his boyfriend. Because that’s what Yixing is to him, and more. He _wants_ that with him. “But I have to go back some day and if you-“

“Stop,” Yixing says firmly, and tugs on Baekhyun’s wrist lightly as if to emphasize himself. “I don’t want to go back with you like that.” Baekhyun stiffens, freezing as those words slam into him. He almost feels numb, watching with wider eyes as Yixing sighs in apparent frustration, running a hand irritably through his hair. “Not- not like that, I _do_ want you. But not with me going back with you the way you want me to. I don’t want to go back as the next big star while you hide in the shadows just behind me.” 

The soft relief fades quickly to be replaced with annoyance. Baekhyun is trying to make this work. He’s figured out how to do it, and he’s trying. “Think about it though,” Baekhyun persists, watching as Yixing pushes himself up as well. The soft almost hazy atmosphere is gone, and Yixing is frowning at him. “It could work. You could go and perform and do the music you’ve always loved and I would-“

“Enough, Baekhyun!” Yixing says sharply, and Baekhyun’s mouth snaps shut. His annoyance doesn’t abate though, instead flaring higher as Yixing looks at him in clear refusal and a glimmer of betrayal in his eyes. “That’s not the life I want.”

There is a sudden flicker in his eyes, one that Baekhyun recognizes instantly from seeing it in his own eyes so often. Doubt. That this is just Baekhyun using him, getting this close to get him to agree with the guise of love.

That’s not it at all, and Baekhyun wants to yell in frustration because that’s the _opposite_ of what he wants. It may have been how it started, but that’s not at all the case. He doesn’t want to fight with Yixing, never wanting to hurt him and doubt him like this, thinking that Baekhyun would lie to him.

Despite how Baekhyun, technically, has been lying. To some degree.

It’s all too exhausting for being awake barely thirty minutes, and this wasn’t at all how he wanted this morning to start. Letting out a sigh, he shakes his head. Biting his lip, Baekhyun lowers his eyes to the tangled sheets they’d slept in just moments ago. “Okay,” he says, voice rough. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

When he looks up, Yixing is watching him almost warily. “I shouldn’t have brought it up again. I just- never mind. Forget about it. I just- I wanted to- I don’t want to fight.”

“Good,” Yixing says, and though his tone is stronger, he looks more relaxed. Some of the doubt has faded from his eyes, and he lets his weight settle easier in the bed. “Then let’s not fight.”

It’s an early start, and the fight was averted, but Baekhyun doesn’t want to give up. 

They get up, passing about the morning after taking a few lazed moments after Yixing settled down again and Baekhyun kept his mouth shut. His opinions to himself. The initial mood of the morning has been forgotten, instead just finally lapsing into them curled together as Baekhyun closed his eyes to listen to Yixing’s soft breathing.

The fact of the matter is that Yixing, despite his adamant answer of no to the proposal, definitely wants him, and not just short term. It makes no sense for him to be doing this with him, to be investing in him like this if he didn’t want to. Yixing loves the things he loves, and he does it with his whole heart.

That much Baekhyun remembers clear as anything. It’s still true now, where Yixing is so tied to his family, his music, his love of the arts and the people in his life. It’s in how Baekhyun catches him looking at him before Yixing will smile.

Wondering if Yixing has been thinking about what will happen when Baekhyun leaves, Baekhyun closes his eyes. He’s not going to let this die.

He won’t.

♭

The face looking back at Baekhyun is disappointed. It’s almost worse than it being angry or sad or just plain irritated. Baekhyun _hates_ when Junmyeon looks at him with that look. He’s only worn it a few times, and every time Baekhyun felt some of the lowest he’d ever felt.

The last time Junmyeon had looked at Baekhyun like that, it was when Baekhyun had told him he didn’t want to do any of it anymore. The look had only lasted a few minutes then.

Now, Junmyeon has been staring at him from the computer screen on the video chat with that look on his face since Baekhyun accepted the call for about five minutes. So far, Baekhyun had thought he could hold out, but the more Junmyeon stares at him in silence with that _look_ , the worse he feels.

“Please stop looking at me like that,” Baekhyun finally says, cracking down.

Baekhyun has been out here for almost two months and he’s rarely had a video conference with Junmyeon. Most of the contact he has with him is through the phone or email.

Which means Junmyeon is very serious right now.

“Like what, Baekhyun?” Junmyeon asks. He _sounds_ disappointed too. Baekhyun almost squirms in his seat.

The problem with having Junmyeon as his supervisor on this job is that he’s not the regular figure of authority in Baekhyun’s life. While Baekhyun is perfectly happy to laugh and mostly ignore demanding bosses until he can’t, with Junmyeon it’s different. Junmyeon used to be his manager, and was less of a boss to him as he was more of the older brother Baekhyun would have wanted to have.

Junmyeon isn’t his boss, he’s more than that, and the fact that Junmyeon was the one who Baekhyun was placed under as a mentor at JYE doesn’t escape his notice. He suspects Junmyeon asked for it, but it’s a well known secret at the company that the only person who can even remotely get Baekhyun to behave is Junmyeon.

Partially because Junmyeon has a soft spot for Baekhyun, and Baekhyun, in his own way, admires Junmyeon. Junmyeon was the only one who saw through Baekhyun’s anger and acting out and instead of trying to yell at him, sat down with him and asked him what was really wrong.

The fact that Junmyeon, under all of his stiff looks and adherence to protocol, cares about him makes the moments when Baekhyun has actually managed to disappoint him _brutal_.

“Like I’ve disappointed you,” Baekhyun says. Junmyeon knows exactly how he’s looking at Baekhyun, and he knows how much it makes Baekhyun feel horrible.

It’s why he rarely uses he look. “Well, you have disappointed me,” Junmyeon tells him, and his voice is quiet and even. He’s a vision of calm and composed, that perfectly controlled countenance enviable. 

Junmyeon lets out a long sigh, steepeling his fingers together. “I told you to go and talk to Lay, to coerce him into joining the company, and to find out a way to get him to sign with us. This was both because I wanted to see you have an artist that would really cement your position as a mentor, and also because I thought it would be good for you. To see him again, as I know you miss him.”

“I did,” Baekhyun admits, unafraid to do so. “I did miss him. You were right.”

“ _But_ ,” Junmyeon continues, cutting off Baekhyun before he can slip under Junmyeon’s words and win him over with praise and side tracking the conversation. “You’re running out of time, and while you keep telling me things are going well, not _once_ have I seen real evidence of you making progress. Your reports are rife with you glossing over details. Yes, I can see that. I’m not blind.”

“I’m working on it,” Baekhyun tells him sincerely. “Really, I am. I’m-“

“What I need to know, right now Baekhyun,” Junmyeon interrupts him, and Baekhyun falters. “Is if you are doing this because you don’t want to mentor him. If there is some reason you’re basically dropping this job. And I need you to be completely honest with me.”

Baekhyun gapes, chilled. The look on Junmyeon’s face suggests that he’s listening, regardless of the answer. Swallowing, Baekhyun thinks for a moment if this doesn’t work. If Yixing still says no when Baekhyun’s time is up and he’s forced to return without Yixing, it’s a huge drop. With all the work he and Junmyeon have done, it makes them _both_ look bad for the company.

Baekhyun for failing on the job after putting so much work into it.

Junmyeon for putting his neck out for him, saying that he could do this, giving him the job in the first place.

They both work for such a promised division that failure, while it’s written off among the lower recruiters as too bad, isn’t treated as leniently. Yixing is a huge name, and losing him would be considered a massive loss. It also means that sooner rather than later, others will probably start swooping in and interfering and Yixing could sign with them. It’s unlikely, considering his attitudes, but the company doesn’t know that and isn’t likely to believe that.

Shit.

“I’m not dropping this job,” Baekhyun says, and the look on Junmyeon’s face is like he’s convinced Baekhyun is lying to him. He’s not angry, instead just looking tired and disappointed. “Really, Junmyeon. I’m not.”

“Then why haven’t I see him once? There has been _no_ correspondence or acknowledgement from him that I’ve seen aside from you saying he is ‘warming up to the concept,’ which, to me, just looks like he’s enthusiastic about music. Which was a given from the damn start. He has a goddamn music channel that the posts music on once a week. That’s enough of an indication he likes music.”

Baekhyun bites his lip. It’s hard to imagine taking Yixing under his wing, how right now he wants to mentor Yixing not because he specifically wants to do it for his job, but because he wants to be near him. He wants to bring Yixing into his world, to bind their worlds together, and Yixing is talented, gifted in music in ways Baekhyun never was.

Baekhyun knows JYE made a bad move when they took him instead of running after Yixing back when he signed. Or maybe Sungmin and Taeyeon knew he would refuse them like he’s refusing Baekhyun now.

It would all be so much easier and practical if Yixing just _listened_ to Baekhyun and came back with him, with Baekhyun as his mentor.

“I do want to mentor him,” Baekhyun says firmly. Staring at Junmyeon, he tries to put as much conviction into his voice as possible to convince him. “Look, I am trying. Things have become more complicated, but I think if I talk to him more on this, really get down to things, I could turn him around. I’m right there, I can feel it.” Baekhyun wets his lips, feeling a shiver in his heart as he thinks of this, the confidence in his own voice making him believe it a little. “He trusts me, and I’ll make it work.”

It’s not like before, where he and Yixing had been performing together and the idea of them being so separate or so close was too questionable. Too volatile. Baekhyuhn isn’t performing anymore, and it could work with Yixing being the one always on stage. Always smiling and waving to his fans and beaming with his love of music.

As Baekhyun watches.

“Are you sure you’re not just letting your feelings get in the way of your work?” Junmyeon asks him. Baekhyun’s mouth has gone dry, and he shakes the brief stab of sadness. He gave it up.

Even if he loves music, he stopped for a reason. This is his life now.

“Are you asking me as my boss or as my friend?” Baekhyun asks instead of giving Junmyeon a professional answer.

Junmyeon pauses, pressing his lips together into a line before his face relaxes. “This time,” he says, and his voice is softer. “I want to know as your friend.”

“I’m sure,” Baekhyun says honestly. “But in this case, my feelings are involved in my work.”

They play a huge part. This is a job he, right now, doesn’t want to fuck up.

For a long quiet moment, Junmyeon studies him and Baekhyun tries to look as sure as he can. He wants, needs Junmyeon to trust him. To believe in him.

Junmyeon has always believed in him. Ever since Junmyeon walked in for his first day with designer fake glasses and seen Baekhyun looking like a hungover train wreck, to the day Baekhyun told him “no more,” Junmyeon has believed in him.

Baekhyun bites his lip.

“You’re running out of time.” Junmyeon looks at him less authoritatively and more pointedly. “Two weeks. You have to get him here in two weeks, by any means possible”

“Two weeks,” Baekhyun says, holding up two fingers. He smiles, and Junmyeon offers a weak one in return. Baekhyun’s heart shivers in his chest, thinking of the last time he’d brought up the topic and how that had gone. He’ll find a way.

♭

The first day of the new week finds the music shop operated only by Mr. Kim. It’s nearing the middle of October, and the harvest season is in full swing, the local farms truly wrapping up. While Yixing had been lending a hand to the family between his job and keeping up his music, in the fields with his parents and helping his grandmother with the basic chores, now he’s there full time.

“You could help us, you know,” Yixing says, coming in from outside and flushed from exertion. He smiles, tossing back his hair, too long now, and setting down a basket of apples on the large kitchen table.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Baekhyun says, even as he shucks his jacket. “What if I hurt myself?”

“Then I get to play doctor,” Yixing says, and grins pleasantly as Baekhyun almost chokes as a sudden flare of heat spikes through him. Yixing looks completely nonplussed as he walks back outside, and Baekhyun ends up running to catch up to him, jumping on his back. Yixing yelps as Baekhyun wraps his arms around his neck, legs tucking at his waist.

There’s a moment where it feels like Yixing will lose his balance. Then his hands come to hold under Baekhyun’s thighs, hoisting him higher on his back, bouncing him slightly. Clinging as he piggybacks his boyfriend, Baekhyun leans in to whisper into Yixing’s ear, “giddy-up,” and squeezes Yixing’s waist with his thighs.

“If you’re good, maybe I’ll let you ride me later too,” Yixing says casually. Baekhyun bites his ear and Yixing nearly drops him. “Bad puppy,” he says as Baekhyun chokes a yelp, catching him easily and grinning.

“Don’t act like you don’t enjoy my legs around you,” Baekhyun mumbles, holding on tighter as Yixing walks towards the orchards.

“When on earth did I say I didn’t like that?” Yixing asks him incredulously. He squeezes Baekhyun’s thighs as he holds him up as if to emphasize his point. Baekhyun is dropped unceremoniously on his ass when they get to the orchard, Yixing just cocking his head and telling him it was payback for blowing at the back of his neck. “You know how I feel about that.”

“Bothered,” Baekhyun suggests, feeling a little bothered himself as he lies on the grass under the apple trees and looks up at Yixing.

Yixing has, for some inhuman reason, decided that despite the colder air, tanks are still totally acceptable. Baekhyun shivers now, in the cooler weather and no longer clinging to Yixing’s hot body as his own portable furnace. Yixing, now, with his tank ridden up a bit to reveal where his jeans hang low on his hips, winks at Baekhyun. “Race you.”

They did this a few times before. Back in high school, Baekhyun would avoid club activities and instead spend his time on the Zhang’s farm, helping out sometimes. He and Yixing used to spend a lot of time in the orchards, either at night in the summer and stargazing or climbing the trees in the afternoons and talking in endless circles. They would sometimes camp out under the open sky, playing and singing music for hours. Baekhyun would wake up with the dawn, tucked to Yixing’s side and with grass in his hair.

During the harvests, Baekhyun would help out, knowing that they didn’t have the funds to hire help with the produce. He and Yixing would race each other in the orchards, starting at one line of trees and work their way down the line, filling their baskets as fast as they could.

The winner got a kiss.

“What’s on the table?” Baekhyun asks, pushing himself up and grabbing an empty basket and holding it in his arms.

Yixing squints, thinking for a minute. “A music session,” he finally says. “If I win, _we_ have a music session with the girls that isn’t just me. If you win, I cook you dinner.”

“Deal,” Baekhyun says, and grins cockily at Yixing, sticking his tongue between his teeth. Yixing barely has a moment to smile before Baekhyun is yelling “readysetgo!” and leaping down his row of apple trees with his basket. He laughs as Yixing yells out at him for cheating before laughing and running to his own row.

♭

Despite his efforts, which had been valiant, Baekhyun loses. Terribly. Defeated and exhausted, his three baskets of apples weak compared to Yixing’s seven, Baekhyun flops back into the grass. “You win,” he says, panting from climbing up and down the trees and lugging around the weight of the baskets. “I am conquered. Defeated. Left to die.”

“Poor you,” Yixing says, looking down at him sprawled in the grass. “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure to bury you with roses.”

“Mourn me?” Baekhyun says, waving his arms feebly for Yixing to pull him up.

Instead of pulling him up, Yixing steps over him and sits down straddling over Baekhyun’s hips, grabbing his hands and lacing their fingers. “I promise I’ll keen for at least one day,” he says and laughs when Baekhyun bucks up, trying to throw him off. Still seated firmly on Baekhyun’s stomach, Yixing instead leans down and kisses him. His lips are cooler, his skin warm from working and Baekhyun relaxes back into the earth, eyes closing as he returns the kiss lazily.

“You owe me a music session,” Yixing says, pulling back to grin down at him and Baekhyun rolls his eyes. He surges up a moment later, getting a shriek from Yixing as he’s toppled over and sent sprawling in the grass, Baekhyun following.

It’s not that hard to convince Seulgi and Irene to come out to meet them. They end up bringing along their instruments and this time, Baekhyun doesn’t hold back. He sings like he used to, the light of the small bon fire they build in the fire pit located in the park in the center of the town flickering an orange light over them.

The warmth it casts, flickering against the shadows and heating against Baekhyun’s skin is almost hypnotizing. Yixing is seated on one of the rocks around the pit just a ways away, the firelight setting a warm glow to him. It flashes parts of him in brilliance, licking him in firelight, the rest of him swallowed in darkness.

By now, Baekhyun knows almost every single one of Yixing’s songs, sitting often times with Yixing while he plays, much like before. Often, he’ll either watch him or fill out whatever paperwork he’s given, the two just sharing space. More often than not, he’ll just sit and listen as Yixing tests them out, his original pieces instead of the covers he does for his videos.

Baekhyun likes the original works the best. He always did. It speaks a part of Yixing, his heart, his soul, and his feelings. Emotions pouring into the songs he writes and sings. Used to write and sing for both of them.

It takes a moment before Baekhyun realizes the songs they’re singing have changed, that the reason he’s singing along without thinking is because they’re _their_ songs. It sinks into him heavily, as he sings all the old songs. Yixing watches him, a pleased expression on his face as he sings with him.

“You guys are so good together,” Seulgi says during a break between songs, looking between the two of them. Her guitar is resting on her knees, and she looks between the two of them with something close to admiration. “It’s like it’s effortless.”

“We’re just that good,” Baekhyun teases, and Yixing chuckles, kicking dirt at him. 

“Lots of practice,” Yixing says. “We’ve known each other for a long time. It happens when you’ve performed and done a lot of music together.”

“You performed together before?” Irene asks, leaning against Seulgi’s legs, curled up and closest to the fire.

“When we were about your age,” Baekhyun answers. He chances a glance at Yixing. “Once upon a time.”

“Why did you stop?” Seulgi asks, her eyes flickering between the two of them, lingering on Baekhyun. “You sound like you’re made to sing together. And you both clearly enjoy doing it together.”

Baekhyun’s heart jumps, beginning to beat faster in his chest as Yixing’s eyes drift over to his and linger. They’re dark, less of the soft brown. A deeper hue, drawing him in. It makes his hands itch to reach for him.

“Nah,” Yixing says, leaning back, the darkness swallowing him away from the fire. “He’s a huge pain to deal with honestly. You know he once used a piece of sheet music to take cheat sheet notes for a math test?”

“I swear,” Baekhyun huffs, kicking dirt at Yixing this time. “That was one time!”

“And I’ll never let you forget it,” Yixing says, kicking back. The girls laugh, and Baekhyun watches as Yixing’s gaze stays on him, drawing his lower lip between his teeth slowly. It sends a warmth curling in Baekhyun that isn’t from the fire.

It builds, slowly and steadily through the night. As the fire dies out, leaving just glowing embers, the warmth faded, the stars blink out over them. Seulgi and Irene are shadows in the dark, barely illuminated by the glow of the still hot embers. Scooting closer to the fire to keep warm, Baekhyun lets out a soft breath when he hears movement behind him.

Eyes closing, Baekhyun feels arms circle around his waist, tugging him back to rest against a warm chest, Yixing’s legs on either side of his. Letting himself get pulled back, Baekhyun sighs happily as Yixing’s warmth seeps into him, pressing warm and firm against him. They’re both tired, hidden in the dark from the girls as Baekhyun rests against Yixing and feels the dull weariness settle into his limbs from apple picking earlier.

“Tired from just a bit of manual labor?” Yixing hums into his ear, arms around his waist. “You’re going all soft and dainty being in the city.”

“They’d eat you alive in the city. You’re not allowed to go without me to protect you from scary ruffians,” Baekhyun mumbles, lulled by the warmth from Yixing and his own fatigue. He shifts, and lets out a soft sound as Yixing tightens his arms around him.

“My knight in shining armor,” Yixing whispers hotly against the sensitive skin of his neck. “Riding in to save me on his white horse.”

“Damn straight,” Baekhyun hums, smiling and melting in a contented hum as Yixing presses a kiss to his neck softly. He tilts his head, baring his neck and shivering at the feeling, the skin of his neck always sensitive. Yixing has been the only one to somehow understand how to touch and treat his neck, getting Baekhyun gasping and feeling like he’s going mad in minutes where he’d shove other people off for going near it.

Yixing’s neck has also always been sensitive as well, and Baekhyun briefly considers this is a component as to how he touches Yixing, knowing his own sensitivity. Then Yixing moves down a bit, kissing more and Baekhyun lets out a slightly louder gasp, arching a bit as his skin flares and sends a rush of arousal through him. He shudders, his hands rising to settle atop Yixing’s thighs on either side of him, fingers digging in.

“Do you want me to stop?” Yixing asks, his voice darker and sending another wave through Baekhyun.

“No,” he breathes. He bites down another soft gasp as Yixing’s hands slip at his sides, mouth open and hot, searing against his neck and he trembles, trying not to arch. The slow tease of Yixing’s fingers down, pressing to the waist of his jeans has a moan clogging at the back of his throat. He tightens his grip on Yixing’s thighs, arching back into him when Yixing slides his fingers over his hardening cock through his jeans, and it throbs. 

Cracking his eyes open, he can see the shapes of Seulgi and Irene, chattering softly on the other side of the fire pit, and a hot flare of arousal coils in his lower abdomen.

If he’s a little too loud, it isn’t that hard to figure out what’s going on. It makes him hot, the thrill of being caught mixing with the soft swirl of Yixing’s tongue along his skin making his mind hazy and his body hot. He shifts, trying to push back. His hips rock back slightly to press into Yixing behind him,with the heel of Yixing’s hand pressing down against Baekhyun’s trapped cock torturously.

Pulling away, Yixing delivers a brief bite to Baekhyun’s ear, making him bite down hard on his lip to keep quiet. “I think we’re going to head home,” Yixing says, the loudness of his voice ringing in Baekhyun’s ear. “It’s late, and we had a long day of harvest. Well, I did, and Baekhyun is weak.”

“Am not,” Baekhyun protests, clearing his throat when it comes out too thick. He feels Yixing pull away, leaving him to shiver at the sudden rush of cold. “You just wear me out.”

“I enjoy it,” Yixing says, grabbing his guitar. The embers just barely light his face, but Baekhyun can see the smile spread over it. His eyes glint and Baekhyun swallows down to try to calm down the pulse through him of want.

“Okay,” Irene says, she and Seulgi standing as well. “Thanks again for inviting us out. It’s always fun to watch and hear you guys play. Until next time.”

Baekhyun reminds himself as he pulls Yixing through the door of his unit that Yixing doesn't have to work tomorrow. He reminds himself that there is no alarm to be set as usually Grandmother Zhang gets the morning chores done while Yixing tends to sleep in. It pushes the air from him almost as hard as when Yixing pushes him up against the wall, crashing their mouths together a moment later.

Baekhyun accepts it hungrily. While he had been tired before, lulled by the lure of the fire and the weariness in his limbs, his body is humming now, thriving on the feeling of Yixing pressing hard against him, hands slipping over him. He’s panting, going between frantic and dirty kisses to getting his hands under Yixing’s shirt, pulling it off him hastily to get to his skin.

“God, I’ve wanted you all day,” he growls, pushing Yixing back enough to drag his shirt over his head. The air is hot, and Baekhyun expects Yixing to swing back into him, a pendulum of lust to crash them both into pleasure. Yixing doesn’t, staying back and his skin pale in the light drifting in from the window.

“I know,” Yixing says, and Baekhyun shivers when he pulls Baekhyun’s reaching hands into his own, holding them and stilling him. Baekhyun’s breathing sticks, blood pounding in him as Yixing slows down to a near stop, carefully slipping his fingers under Baekhyun’s shirt until it pulls off him. His eyes watch, shining in the moon and starlight, as every inch of Baekhyun is revealed to him.

It’s when he gets like this, where he snaps from giving into Baekhyun’s insistence and vigor to slowly examining him, touching him and opening him up with near reverence, that drives Baekhyun mad. He can feel the blood pounding in him, hazed and hot with arousal that already aches between his legs.

“Please tell me you don’t have to do anything to do tomorrow morning,” Baekhyun moans, his hands smoothing over Yixing’s sides as he step closer. 

Yixing pulls him to panting, mouth dragging down to tease over his chest, his fingers easily pulling his pants open to slip his hands down the back around his ass. Baekhyun lets out a low groan into Yixing’s shoulder as Yixing’s hands clench and rock him forward, rolling their hips together in a delicious friction.

“Just wake up to you,” Yixing murmurs, teasing his fingers into Baekhyun’s underwear to slide against bare skin, fingers teasing him. “So I’m all yours tonight. Or you’re all mine. Either way, I’m happy.”

Biting his lip as another moan ripples from his throat, Yixing rolling their hips together in a delicious friction between their clothed cocks.

“Good,” Baekhyun says, slipping his hands down between them to get to Yixing’s pants. “Because I really want you to fuck me right now. It may take a while and I don’t plan on sleeping much.”

Guided to the bed with the soft touches of strong hands, Baekhyun pulls back to get them both on the bed. They get one lamp on, mostly so Baekhyun can find where the Hell he stashed the lube and condoms after Mrs. Choi cleaned. Crawling leisurely into Yixing’s lap, Baekhyun kisses him, slow and deep, his cock heavy between his legs as Yixing’s hands run up and down his sides.

“On your knees,” Yixing tells him, hands on his hips. The click of the cap of the lube sounds and Baekhyun shifts back, positioning himself on his hands and knees. Glancing back, he grins, feeling the flush that extends down his body and wiggles his ass at Yixing.

“Good?” he asks.

Rather and answering him properly, Yixing slides his hands over both bared cheeks, his hands slick and Baekhyun moans. His fingers clench in the coverlet as he feels the cool trickle of more lube drip down onto his skin, warmed moments later as Yixing’s hands massage it down, teasing it to his entrance.

“You’ve always been so loud,” Yixing murmurs, his breath ghosting over the dimples in Baekhyun’s back. Baekhyun drops his head, pushing back, trying to get him to _move_. “Talking, singing, laughing, and fucking. You fill up all the space around you until there’s no room for anything left.” Baekhyun moans as Yixing’s finger teases him, pressing into the muscle around his entrance and slipping into him.

“I’m bad at not being me,” Baekhyun says throatily. His fingers clench and unclench in the coverlet, relaxing his body as Yixing slides his finger in and out of him, opening him up slowly. The soft kisses over his lower back are a nice distraction, Yixing’s free hand holding Baekhyun’s hip steadily.

“I don’t want you to be anyone else,” Yixing says, lips dragging up Baekhyun’s back. 

Baekhyun’s legs try to spread further, a soft moan falling from him as Yixing adds another finger, stretching him wider. The curl of them inside of him as they press deeper, teasing him open and loose, slow and patient until Baekhyun is a slew of moans and gasps. As Yixing adds a third finger, Baekhyun’s thighs begin to shiver, the soft occasional drags over his prostate giving stronger and stronger rolls of pleasure through him.

He’s sick with it, throat dry from heavy breaths. He cries out when Yixing curls his fingers directly into it and a wave of pleasure crashes into him, leaving his whole body tingling and wanting. “Please,” Baekhyun half whines, hips rocking back and cock leaking. “I want you. I’m ready.”

Yixing pulls him back, twisting him up a bit and kissing him, drinking him in, Baekhyun hot and needing him. Wanting him and heady with it.

Pushing Yixing back, Baekhyun pulls him to sit with his back to the headboard, legs stretched as Baekhyun settles over him. Hands pressing to Yixing’s shoulders, he sits on Yixing’s thighs, rocking them together as they kiss. Pushing himself up onto his knees, Baekhyun watches with impatience as Yixing rolls the condom onto himself, finally looking up at Baekhyun.

“I didn’t know you’d take the comment from earlier today seriously,” Yixing says roughly, leading off in a groan as Baekhyun positions himself and sinks down slowly. Baekhyun is breathing heavily when he finally settles, seated fully in Yixing’s lap with his cock buried deep inside him, stretching him perfectly.

“How can you suggest me riding you and not think I’d take is seriously?” Baekhyun asks him, voice hoarse. “It’s like you don’t know me at all.”

Yixing lets out a soft laugh, hands running over Baekhyun’s sides and down his waist and thighs. “I’ll keep that in mind,” Yixing says, and lets out a soft stuttered gasp as Baekhyun rotates his hips, adjusting to the feel of Yixing inside of him.

“I know,” Baekhyun says roughly, rising up and feeling the slow delicious drag of Yixing’s cock inside him. “You said I fill up space with noise.” He lowers himself, a little faster and his breath sticks hot in his throat. “But,” he gasps, beginning to set a pace as he lets himself rise and fall on Yixing’s cock. Yixing is watching him with dark eyes, focus paid and handss guiding and helping as Baekhyun fucks himself down. “I’m empty without you.”

Yixing’s eyes flash, and his hips jerk up, Baekhyun crying out as Yixing’s cock drives into him and he falters. Hands tightening on Yixing’s shoulders, he rides him harder, pace faster as he takes Yixing’s cock into him over and over again, building the growing arousal that tenses tighter in his groin.

“I can’t tell if you’re being serious or sexual or joking,” Yixing gasps, rolling his hips slightly up to meet Baekhyun’s falls onto him.

“All,” Baekhyun moans, fucking down as his thighs strain from exertion. He welcomes the kiss Yixing presses to his mouth, open and hot as the rise and fall with each other. “But I meant it,” he gasps into Yixing’s mouth, heart beating wildly in his chest.

“I know,” Yixing reassures, and Baekhyun closes his eyes. He digs his fingernails deep as he feels Yixing’s hand wrap around his cock and a burst of pleasure flows through him as Yixing drives up into him and his mouth drops opens in a choked cry.

♭

The problem with being so aware of the time limit is that with the limited time frame, he’s not sure how to broach the topic without getting Yixing pissed at him. He can feel Yixing becoming more wary of it, his eyes shifting a little as he catches on small drops and mentions that Baekhyun leaves. Talking about his friends back at JYE and bringing up Junmyeon.

“He was your mentor, wasn’t he?” Yixing asks, glancing up once as he and Baekhyun are sitting in the café downtown. Baekhyun is sipping on a spiced hot chocolate as Yixing drinks tea, sheet music from Yixing’s latest piece strewn over the table.

“Yeah,” Baekhyun answers. “He helped me with a lot of stuff. Not specifically music, but mostly with how to deal with the industry, what to do and not do and how to deal with people. I don’t think I could have made it as long as I did if Junmyeon hadn’t been watching over me.” He smiles at Yixing who looks back blankly. “That’s what mentors are for, really. Being there for the artists. It’s a close relationship.”

_That we could have_ is left unsaid. Yixing looks away, back to his music, and the conversation fades.

What bothers Baekhyun is that while he’s not doing this to use Yixing, it could definitely be taken like that. He wants to stay with Yixing, having lost him once and not wanting to make that mistake again. The problem with being in love with Yixing is that while he doesn’t know if Yixing could walk away again, he knows he can’t. Not unless he knows for certain Yixing doesn’t want him.

Everything Yixing does shows him wanting to be with Baekhyun though. Not just romantically, but together. Spending time and seeking him out, entirely unromantic. Pestering Baekhyun to do his work or help them with the harvest, the two of them as good as living together with how often Yixing is at Baekhyun’s unit or Baekhyun at Yixing’s place.

He stays more days at the farmhouse, alternating between doing work for the Choi’s and helping out Yixing’s family with closing up the farm. Grandmother Zhang ends up spending most of her time trying to teach him how to cook, laughing at his failures and teaching him to fix his mistakes. It warms him, like the stolen sweaters from Yixing’s bureau around him, those kind smiles from her. The soft sounds of Yixing playing the old standing piano drift through the house, making him ache for that to stay with him.

To have a life where he doesn't wonder if he’ll have Yixing with him to play their own piano, singing his own music loudly. A life where Yixing is only reminded to sleep in the early morning hours by Baekhyun padding over and tugging him to bed, reminding him to rest and settling down with a sigh.

It makes him itch to want to push, to find out what it is that is keeping Yixing from listening to him, that he keeps him shutting down whenever Baekhyun brings up the topic. What makes him keep them in this removed state where Baekhyun feels so locked out of his world, where he shuts him down and doesn’t budge. Every time Baekhyun tries to get into it, brushing that topic or briefly mentions back when they split the first time, Yixing stops the conversation before it can start.

It’s obvious he doesn’t want to get into it, but Baekhyun can’t see another way of them sticking together without him bringing Yixing back. Sure, Yixing could move to the city, but doing what, and Baekhyun’s not about to move back home.

It’s a fine line between appearing like he’s using their relationship as a coercion method to get Yixing to come back with him, and being genuine.

“Do you know why?” Baekhyun asks Lu Han on Thursday as they’re at the bar, meeting up with the usual group. Lu Han is in the middle of drying glasses, hanging by them as he and Yixing had been chatting for a bit, the brief moment now given as Yixing had gone to the bathroom.

“Why what?” Lu Han asks, frowning at him as he puts the glass in his hands down.

“Why he doesn’t want to actually do something with his music,” Baekhyun asks, trying to word it as best as he can.

Lu Han frowns at him. “What are you talking about?” he asks, bracing his hands on the bar top. “Yixing has always wanted to do something more with his music. He’s wanted to do his music for his living for ages, not only when you two were a thing. He’s not ‘Lay’ for nothing.”

Which makes Baekhyun itch all the more to figure out why, to get Yixing to talk to him and to get him to agree. Baekhyun knows Yixing can do it, if he gets him back to the company that he can give Yixing that. He can put him on the map.

Even if Yixing has some sort of residual anger at JYE for what happened, if he has the wrong ideas about what the company is like, maybe just getting him there will make him see it’s different. Baekhyun just needs to do that, to get him to see that this isn’t because Baekhyun is trying to get paid, to get Yixing as his meal ticket, or use him.

He wants to see Yixing do what he loves and help him do that.

That’s what he’d initially wanted, to be there for Yixing with their music. It’s just a little different now, but not so drastically that there isn’t any hope.

It’s after a long day that Baekhyun finds himself at the Zhang’s, Yixing and he the only ones in the kitchen as Yixing cooks something for them. Baekhyun had thought to do something, suggesting it earlier as how they’d been back together for almost a month. Yixing had vetoed going out for dinner and instead uses the food from the farm to cook, giving Baekhyun small tasks about the kitchen.

They sneak little pecks and touches as they work, Yixing blowing on taste samples before offering them to Baekhyun to test the flavor.

It’s relaxed and easy, just quiet and the two of them, Yixing’s grandmother gone for the evening.

“Good?” Yixing asks, watching him expectantly for a verdict on the taste of the sauce he’s making for their dinner. In response, Baekhyun just leans forward and kisses him.

Pulling back, he smiles brilliantly. “Delicious,” he says and Yixing scoffs, smiling all the same as he turns back to cooking.

The day before, Yixing had recorded one of his videos to post online, meaning he’s not distracted with music as they wander back to his room after cleaning up dinner. They barely get through a movie on the computer before Baekhyun is distracted, his mind blurred with deadlines and his focus wandering with his fingers under the hem of Yixing’s shirt.

The movie is easily abandoned as Yixing leans into the kiss Baekhyun presses to his mouth, leaning into his touches. Getting his shirt off, Baekhyun lets his hands run down Yixing’s bare chest, tongue at his lips. Yixing is still stunning, making Baekhyun’s mouth water as he looks over the strong defined lines of his body. He lets his fingers run down, over the hard muscle just visible under soft skin, before leaning down and following the path of his fingers with his mouth.

The soft appreciative sighs and sounds that Yixing makes, his eyes dark as they fix on him, his hands sifting into Baekhyun’s hair and lightly scratching his scalp curl arousal in his lower belly. He moans softly as Baekhyun sucks gently at little patches of skin, sensitive spaces along Yixing’s body he hasn’t forgotten and the louder responses and arching of Yixing’s body urge him on.

Yixing pulls Baekhyun’s shirt off over his head, leaning up to drag his teeth down his collarbones, positioning Baekhyun over him as he lies back in the bed. Baekhyun grips onto the bed frame as Yixing litters soft bites and nips over his skin, soothing them a moment later with soft drags of his tongue. Shivering, he moans loudly, knowing there isn’t anyone to hear him but Yixing as Yixing toys with one of his nipples with this teeth, then soothing the sensitive bud with his tongue and kisses.

“Fuck,” Baekhyun gasps out, slipping back down to kiss over Yixing’s face, heady with arousal as Yixing’s hands slide down to his ass and squeeze. “I wish I could do this every day.”

“What’s stopping you?” Yixing hums at him before catching his lower lip between his teeth and dragging at it. He rolls up, pressing the heat of his cock in his jeans to Baekhyun’s and grinding into him.

Choking down the want to say, “you are, actually,” Baekhyun pulls away to kiss and bite down Yixing’s body. He lets his lip catch on his belly, sliding down and working Yixing’s pants open to push them down, freeing his erection to bump against Baekhyun’s collarbones. He grins up at Yixing instead of speaking, drifting down to drag his tongue up Yixing’s cock and getting a loud sigh.

With the heady weight of Yixing on his tongue, Baekhyun teases him, lips slipping around the tip of his cock, his fingers wrapping around the base and gently stroking him. Yixing spreads his legs as best he can, shifting up on his elbows to watch Baekhyun with dark lidded eyes. “You feel so good,” Yixing murmurs, taking a hand to run through Baekhyun’s hair, pushing his bangs off his face.

Pulling off to lap at his cock, Baekhyun takes in a breath and tells him, “of course I am,” before wrapping his mouth around Yixing again and taking him deeper. He takes his time, watching as Yixing’s chest begins to heave, his mouth parted as he pants, eyes fixed on him as he bobs his head, taking Yixing into his mouth even further. With his other hand, he carefully reaches lower, letting them tease at Yixing’s balls and earning a rough low moan.

Baekhyun responds with his own, the vibrations of his voice traveling to Yixing’s cock in his mouth. Yixing’s head drops, eyes fluttering. Fingers fondling at Yixing’s balls and his other hand lazily dragging up and down his cock, Baekhyun pulls off, lips slick with spit and with the taste of his lover on his tongue. “Feel nice?”

“You’re so damn good at this,” Yixing tells him, hand pushing Baekhyun’s hair back again, cheeks flushed.

“What, sucking your dick?” Baekhyun asks, laying his head on Yixing’s thigh.

“That,” Yixing says, a little smile to his lips. “And being able to get under my skin until all I want is you.”

“Yeah,” Baekhyun hums, laying a few kisses over Yixing’s hips as he continues to stroke him leisurely. He knows that while Yixing likes to vary the pace when they have sex, a slower steady pace or just almost primal fucking are what turns him on like nothing else. He presses his thumb to the underside of Yixing’s cock and Yixing lets out a low moan, eyes on him. “I am pretty good at that aren’t I?”

_I think he’d do most anything if you asked him_.

Jinri’s voice floats through his mind. Baekhyun closes his eyes as he sucks a light mark into the skin of Yixing’s hip. “This is what it used to be like, remember?” he speaks softly into the skin of Yixing’s hip, slowly bringing him off. He mouths for a moment at Yixing’s cock before letting his lips drag down it and nuzzling into the soft curls at its base. “What it should have been like, what we could have.”

Suddenly, Yixing’s hands are on him, pulling him back and he’s sitting up. His eyes are still dark with arousal, cheeks pink, but he’s frowning, a furrow between his brows as he pants at Baekhyun. “Is that what this is about?” Yixing asks, wrapping his hand around Baekhyun’s and stopping it on his cock. “Baekhyun, stop,” he commands, and Baekhyun does. “Is that why you’re doing this? Because you think this is how it would have been, _should_ have been? Because you’re mad I keep telling you no so you’re getting me to-“

“No!” Baekhyun cuts him off, and meets his eyes firmly. “Look, I’m-“ he sighs. Maybe this wasn’t the best time to do this, but they’re here now. “I’m not fucking you so you join my damn company and because I regret a bad decision in the past.” Yixing’s jaw tenses and Baekhyun pulls his hand away, sitting up and pushing himself into Yixing’s space. He will not lose him to something like this. “I’m here, right now, in your bed and _with you_ because I want to be.”

Yixing’s eyes are darting between both of Baekhyun’s. His chest is still heaving from what Baekhyun had been doing before with his mouth and hands, but his focus hasn’t been clouded. “If you’re just here to be with me then why do you keep bringing it up?” he asks. “I told you my answer before, many times.”

“Because I want to be with you!” Baekhyun bursts out, his frustration getting the better of him. Why it is so hard for Yixing to understand this, Baekhyun can’t get his head around. “I don’t want to leave at the end of the month and not have you with me. I want to be with you, to have you in my life and see your smile and watch you forget words when you need them and stay up just to make sure you get to bed without exhausting yourself. That’s what being in love is, and I don’t want to throw it away again!”

Yixing hasn’t softened, still watching Baekhyun with trepidation on his face. “I love you,” he says, and Baekhyun wants to yell. “But I have needs and wants too.”

“Then tell me what they are!” Baekhyun insists, reaching to take his hand and squeezing it tightly. His breathing is too fast in his chest. “I keep trying to ask and you shut me out. I can’t know what you want unless you tell me what it is.” He swallows, a feeling of dread suddenly pushing into him. “Do you just not want this to-“ His throat closes and Yixing’s eyes widen.

“No!” he says, and opens his mouth as if to blunder on, and then stops. He lets out a loud frustrated exhale and shakes his head. “Baekhyun, I want to be with you. I do. I want to live with you in my life and see your smile and deal with your cheesy comments and I love you. But I want to do my music.” Baekhyun’s chest flares with heat, in anger and hope. “I want to live and share what I do with people and I want you to be a part of that instead of just standing at the wayside or far away where I can’t-“ He breaks off, and Baekhyun’s breathing is too fast for him to keep inside.

Swallowing, Baekhyun takes Yixing’s other hand in his, holding them both tightly. “I want that too,” he says, and Yixing looks at him, almost sad. “That’s why I keep trying to ask you to come back with me.” Yixing’s eyes close and Baekhyun’s heart jumps. “Honestly, it would make so much more sense if you come back with me,” Baekhyun presses on. “You can’t do what you want here, it’s so limiting for you and there’s nothing for either of us to do here except spin wheels. I don’t want to do that and I know you don’t either.”

“Baekhyun,” Yixing almost whispers, eyes still closed.

“Please,” Baekhyun insists. It’ll be safe for them when they get back to JYE. Baekhyun will make sure of it. “You can tell me or yourself that what I’m trying to do isn’t perfect, and it isn’t. But I’m trying. I threw this away once, I let you go and thought I could forget you and I was wrong. I threw away what we had and all our work once, you did too.” Yixing opens his eyes. “I thought we both agreed it was a bad idea.”

“It _was_ ,” Yixing says, and his voice almost strains. “Baekhyun, that’s-“

“So why can’t you just listen to me and try this?” Baekhyun insists. His heart is beating so hard in his chest it hurts, the emotions spinning in him making his throat tight and ache. He can see the soft misted look in Yixing’s eyes that suggests how much this is affecting his lover. “I can’t bring us back to five years ago where we could just start it all over again and it was easy, but I _can_ do whatever it takes to get you as close to me as I can so you can do your music. So can you please, please, come back-“

“Baekhyun!” Yixing yells, and jerks his hands away from him sharply. He’s almost glaring now, tears lingering at the edges of his eyes. “Stop! Just stop! I don’t want to go back just so I can watch us struggle to do this, to still be separate and have to hide what we are, what we have.”

“We won’t-“ Baekhyun chokes, even as the reality burns into his skin. Into his mind and makes him falter. They will, but they’ll figure it out. Baekhyun is used to having to hide what he is, having to do things just because it’s expected.

A phone filled with a few inquiring messages and short answers with a part of his life Baekhyun likes to forget about.

“Yes, we will,” Yixing snaps. The arousal is gone, Baekhyun cold and still irritated and staring futilely at Yixing as he pulls away. “I’ve been watching you for five years, Baekhyun. _Five years_ of watching you lie and hide who and what you are and I don’t want that with you.”

“Then we’ll figure something out,” Baekhyun says. “We’ll get there, and make it happen. It’ll be hard, but-“

“No,” Yixing says, and shifts back on the bed. He wipes at his face angrily, before stilling, eyes closed and letting out a shaking sigh. “No, Baekhyun.”

Heart aching in his chest, Baekhyun tries to reach for him, and when Yixing flinches back it feels like it breaks a little. “Yixing, I-“

“Drop it,” Yixing says, voice clogged. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I don’t want to fight.” He shifts, pulling his pants back up a bit and running a hand through his hair, pushing it off his face. Then he lets out a long shaking sigh. “I don’t want to lose you but I don’t want you to lose who or what you are, or who or what I am either.”

“I don’t want that either,” Baekhyun says, voice softer and bordering on broken.

“Then stop asking for it,” Yixing half whispers, looking at him imploringly and Baekhyun’s heart twists painfully in his chest.

♭

_Hey asshole. I hope you’re not dead or something because I haven’t heard from you in almost two months and even if Junmyeon tells me you’re okay and going to call me, I’m unconvinced you aren’t a skeleton in his closet. Or in Kyungsoo’s closet, and Junmyeon is just covering for him out of his weird loyalty complex. Message me so I don’t have to call a criminal investigation please? I really don’t want to deal with a murder trial AND my schedule for this year._

_-S_

_P.S. I also maybe miss you a little. Mostly because now there’s no one to eat entire pints of ice cream for me so I can live vicariously through them._

_Kisses and Fucks~_ ♡

♭

“Can you promise me?” Baekhyun asks, his eyes itching with exhaustion and trying not to continuously rub his face with his hands. He hasn’t shaved yet and the patchy stubble is just going to make him irritated if he doesn’t soon.

It’s lucky that stubble doesn’t show up on video calls.

“I’d promise you anything, mom,” Joy chirps at him and Baekhyun groans.

“I told you to stop calling me that,” Baekhyun sighs at the bright smiling girl on his computer screen. “Chanyeol has the worst influence on you ever.”

“Well, I can’t really call you dad, because he’s already claimed that,” Joy says, and then lets out a little laugh. “Plus, you got mad when I tried to call you ‘Brikka Baek’.”

“That’s because it’s the stupidest name I’ve ever heard,” Baekhyun tells her firmly and she pouts at him. “Even stupider than Park DuBeats and Joy Fiesty.”

“I’m telling dad on you,” Joy pouts at him and Baekhyun sighs. She’s developed this terrible habit of taking after all of Chanyeol’s bad attributes. While Chanyeol himself isn’t bad, he has aspects to him that drive Baekhyun up a wall. Apparently, all of these aspects are rubbing off of Joy, and she’s flourishing with them.

“How about you put him on and I’ll yell at him myself,” Baekhyun suggests. “Besides, aren’t you late for a dance practice, kiddo?”

Joy skips off to go to her practice after blowing him a kiss, and Baekhyun slumps back into his chair. It’s been a long few days, mostly of Baekhyun being unable to sleep and contemplating what to do. It had been rough the other night, finally settling down with Yixing but feeling like something was about to break.

He’s running out of time, in more ways than one. The decision of going back without Yixing and just dropping the whole thing, of dragging Yixing back with him, of running.

Just running.

Baekhyun sighs, running his hands over his face finally and pressing his fingertips into his eyes, willing the fatigue to go away. He’s not been sleeping well, the nights spent alone. It’s not that things are _bad_ with him and Yixing, it’s just that now they’re both a bit on edge. Baekhyun can feel it, and he can see Yixing feels it too.

It shows in how when they’re together, it’s almost too sincere, they’re too happy. It shows in how when they fuck, they’ve lost the soft peace and harmony in each other. Before, their movements with each other were like they have the rest of their lives to spend together. Now, Yixing fucks him like Baekhyun used to urge him to back when Baekhyun never knew if tomorrow would be okay or he’d end up with a cracked skull. 

It’s intense and hard and almost brutal and everything Baekhyun demands, both of them desperate. Yixing gives until they fall apart together and can barely move. After, Baekhyun’s skin feels alive with nerves, and he’s restless, unable to sleep.

Baekhyun does not function well without sleep. 

“You look like shit,” Chanyeol tells him, sitting down in front of the computer and sipping a huge coffee mug gingerly. “What happened? Local night fever got you hungover or something?”

“I haven’t been sleeping well,” Baekhyun admits.

Chanyeol grimaces. “Problems with Lay?”

That twist in Baekhyun’s chest that had begun a few days ago turns harder and he winces. “Yeah,” he admits, and Chanyeol gives him a sympathetic look. He waves a hand, putting on a mask to hide how he’s almost sick with this. How he doesn’t want any of this, the slowly rising claustrophobia of being cut off from music and Yixing and the prospect of losing him.

“You’ll figure it out,” Chanyeol tells him with a reassuring smile. “You have a way of just…”

“Pulling things out of my ass?” Baekhyun prompts dryly.

“I did not need that mental image,” Chanyeol tells him pointedly. “Ever.”

“You’re welcome,” Baekhyun says with a grin. “How are you doing? Still planning your great departure into your own musical pursuits?”

“Stop sounding like you want to get rid of me,” Chanyeol says, taking a long sip of whatever is in his mug. “I told you, it’ll be a while before I can get that off the ground, but it’s looking good.” He grins. “You remember your actor friend?” Baekhyun frowns. “The one that looks like a male model but acts like a masculine teenage girl.”

“Oh, Zitao,” Baekhyun says, laughing at bit at Chanyeol’s description. “Yeah, what about him?”

“I’m recruiting him,” Chanyeol says with a wide grin. Baekhyun’s jaw drops. “We’ve been hanging out a bit since you aren’t here to entertain us and he really likes the idea.”

“Zitao likes big dream ideas that are shiny and full of romance,” Baekhyun says, smiling bitterly as he thinks of his own dreams. It makes that twist ache more. “Of course he likes your idea. You two probably held hands and talked about how wonderful life is going to be.”

“Actually, he gave me a few promoting ideas, told me if I ever needed a face for it he’ll help, and offered to redo my entire wardrobe,” Chanyeol says. He chuckles and Baekhyun can’t say he’s surprised. “He also gave me a demo CD of his that’s him rapping.”

“He- what?” Baekhyun stares. He knew Zitao used to rap before he got into show business for romantic and action movies, but he didn’t know he still did it.

“He’s pretty good actually,” Chanyeol says, looking thoughtful. “Why do you have to horde all your talented friends to yourself? Relationships are about sharing things with each other, and that means talented hot friends.”

“I don’t want you to ruin them,” Baekhyun throws back and Chanyeol adopts a kicked puppy expression. “But I’m glad you two got together. Is he helping you with designing the concept now? Or just going to get you to stop wearing oversized hoodies that may as well shelter a small family.”

“He’s agreed to be one of the first to sign with me if I do get this off the ground,” Chanyeol says, leaning back. “I actually think this will really pull through, Baekhyun. I can finally get a whole slew of underground artists and people like I used to be on the map without all the shit that comes with it.”

“And you’re going to protect them like JYE does,” Baekhyun poses. It’s a bit of a slap, but a part of Baekhyun is a bit bitter.

Chanyeol is sitting here telling him about this huge dream he’s had to promote DJ’s and rappers from his world, and Baekhyun is fighting tooth and nail to try to get the half of his dream to let him help it work. It just feels like he’s so boxed in, and many doors are closing to him.

Chanyeol’s expression falters. “Well, I mean, we’ll be small at first, but we’ll try,” he says.

Shaking his head, Baekhyun tries to get some of his irritation to go away. Chanyeol doesn’t deserve this, him being mad at him for no reason. Chanyeol hasn’t done anything wrong and Baekhyun is being ridiculous. “That’s awesome,” he says, and gives Chanyeol a brilliant smile. “I can’t wait to see you get it going.” Chanyeol’s smile is back. He looks just as tired as Baekhyun, but happier about it.

“So,” Chanyeol says, straightening up. “Fun shit aside, what’s new I should know about?”

In under two weeks, Baekhyun will be coming back to JYE, working in full swing as soon as he gets back on deck. He’ll be training Joy personally, working with Chanyeol and, hopefully, working full time with Yixing to get him ready to debut with the company. It’s going to be a massive change from what Baekhyun has slowly eased into while being home, the relaxed pace of things and the quiet.

After talking with Chanyeol, Baekhyun picks up a bit, running a few errands for the Choi’s. On the way back, he turns his collar up against a light fall drizzle. It makes the back of his neck prickle as the hair rises and he gets back into his unit shaking out his jacket. He bundles up on the bed in one of Yixing’s sweaters, left from when Yixing had come over the other day.

It smells like him and Baekhyun curls up in it, letting that comfort him from some of his rising nerves. He hums to himself, one of Yixing’s songs that had been stuck in his head for the last few days. It’s a little softer in nature, using the beautiful sound of the piano and hangs in the air. The way Yixing sings it, his voice lingering on the notes, has Baekhyun closing his eyes and drifting in it. It works differently in his own voice, and he finds himself singing it under his breath, wondering if Yixing would ever let him sing it with him.

Baekhyun closes his eyes, leaning back on the bed, humming gently and lingering for a moment in the song, hearing the harmonies in his head and fitting them into place.

That had once been what all of Yixing’s songs had been written for. Two voices instead of just one. His and Yixing’s, blending together perfectly and supporting each other, like how Seulgi had commented.

The ringtone from his phone pulls Baekhyun from his thoughts. He takes a steadying breath before answering, bringing the phone to his ear. “Chinese Laundry and Pizza parlor, how is your day?”

“Baekhyun, I know it’s you, don’t be an asshole,” Junmyeon grumbles at him over the phone.

“Aw, you knew it was me,” Baekhyun fake pouts, leaning back so his head rests against the wall. “Spoil sport.”

“I’m glad to see you’re taking things as seriously as ever,” Junmyeon drawls, and it makes a small smile tug at Baekhyun’s lips.

“Well, you know me, ever the proponent of maintaining a businesslike demeanor at all times.” He shifts, shrugging deeper into the sweater for warmth. “How are you?”

“Waiting to hear good news,” Junmyeon tells him bluntly.

“Joy calls me ‘mom’.”

“That’s not good news. That’s terrifying news,” Junmyeon tells him. “How is Lay?”

“We had a long talk,” Baekhyun says slowly. “Cleared a few things up.”

“What kind of talk?” Junmyeon asks, and his voice is weighted.

“The kind where we didn’t get angry and no one threw a stapler,” Baekhyun tells him. “No instruments were harmed in the process of the talk. Or people. And there was only a little yelling.”

“You are not making me feel at all reassured right now, I hope you know that.” Junmyeon sounds exhausted. He’s been sending Baekhyun more paperwork than usual, which means he’s extremely stretched right now. “But things got cleared up?”

“Yes,” Baekhyun says, his throat dry. 

It’s been a little sore since that talk. He’s not sure if it’s the cooler weather, but thinks it’s more because of how he hasn’t been sleeping, and he’s been using his voice more. Singing and fucking among a few activities that vigorously use his voice.

“Good,” Junmyeon says. “Or else I’d be coming out to step in and fix this up.”

Baekhyun’s stomach twists hard and he sits up quickly, eyes flying wide. “Please don’t do that,” he says.

If Junmyeon comes out here, it will mess up so much. It’ll look like Baekhyun really has just been doing this as acting under orders. Junmyeon means well, but he has a way about him that is strictly business, and it tends to cut into people the wrong way sometimes. There’s also how Junmyeon being out here would pull his and Yixing’s relationship into the focus.

A relationship that he’s technically not supposed to be in, regardless of how much he loves and wants to be in it.

“Then I’ll wait to hear from you in a few days with your travel plans of when Lay will be coming back with you and how I should set up his dorm.”

“He can just live with me,” Baekhyun says immediately, not thinking it through.

“Why would he live with you?” Junmyeon’s voice is a little edged. Baekhyun knows he’s suspicious.

“You lived with me when you became my mentor for a while,” Baekhyun stumbles.

“Because you were an alcoholic and could barely take care of yourself, let alone operate like a a professional musician,” Junmyeon retorts tersely. “It was either live with you so you didn’t accidentally electrocute yourself trying to make toast, or forfeit both of our careers.” He lets out a loud breath that crackles over the phone. “As far as I know, Lay has no need to live with you at all, perfectly capable on his own.”

“Right,” Baekhyun says, and his heart twists in his chest painfully. “You’re right.”

All aspects of this are going to be rough, and it’ll be harder to convince Yixing this will work if they are separated. The rest of the call is spent with Junmyeon filling him in, talking about Hwasa’s details and how Jaehyun is working well with some of the other boys at JYE. The talk of them forming a unit and regrouping into a band that’s beginning to spread through the company. Apparently Junmyeon and he will be pulling strings once Baekhyun is back with Yixing.

“Of course, you’ll be busy with Lay, but consider it a side project along with Joy.”

Baekhyun swallows and bites his lip instead of answering, anxiety crawling up his throat and making it tight.

Yixing comes by later, hanging up his coat by the door to find Baekhyun curled up in bed, tucked under the covers for warmth. He pulls him out, suggesting they get food. Baekhyun and he end up making up something simple before Yixing pulls him out to go for a walk under one of Mrs. Choi’s enormous umbrellas. They walk to the outer fields of the town, closer to where the Byun farmhouse is.

Barely even having the energy to think about his family, Baekhyun is silent, leaning into Yixing and resting his head on his shoulder. Yixing doesn’t ask, instead just walking quietly together and with his arm around Baekhyun’s waist, humming gently. The soft patter of a light rain echoes around them and Baekhyun lets his eyes linger on the road before them.

It’s getting harder and harder to tell himself ‘later’ because ‘later’ is now and he still doesn’t have answers. It’s building into something that he knows is going to hurt. He doesn’t want to be the one to break it, instead lingering as long as he can in the moment where he and Yixing are okay. He suspects Yixing is doing the same thing, keeping quiet and just reveling in what they have now.

It's bittersweet.

On the one hand, Baekhyun is annoyed at him for not just coming back with him and making things easier. It’s a sacrifice in many ways, because no, they will never be able to be fully together and on stage like he used to dream of when he was younger. He gave up that dream after his parents disowned him and he couldn’t ignore how the real world anymore.

There are some who don’t care, who support, but while gay supporting artists are many, those that are on stage initially as out and open are farther and in between. Baekhyun has seen them, experienced the reaction to it that is less than kind. He experienced it when Taeyeon told him and Yixing that they couldn’t debut the way they were because it was too volatile.

The experience which followed him with ‘disconnecting’ himself from that image, going right back into hiding that part of himself all of again, was sobering and, in the end, just as suffocating.

If Baekhyun goes back with Yixing taking him as an artist, they can build it up before coming out, but everything takes time. In many ways, it’s impractical for them to be together, and it could hold back Yixing.

The tightness in his throat grows, and he ends up shivering a little. He’s already stopped so many of his once huge dreams.

The dreams of him and Yixing on stage together, performing together as artists and as lovers. The dream of doing it all was let go when Yixing left after they told them ‘do it separate or don’t do it at all’.

The dream of being a singer when music lost all of the love he once had for it. When it became bitter and painful and choking him enough that going on stage had him shaking. He let go when he walked back after his last concert and told Junmyeon no more.

The dream of making it big and being free and happy.

The air is so chilly, and the mist from the rain sticks to his skin. “Cold?” Yixing asks quietly beside him. Wordlessly, Baekhyun nods. “Almost there,” Yixing says, and pauses to take Baekhyun’s cold hand and squeezes.

They end up getting to one of the far fields, hay bales rolled up and scattered along the mown grasses. At the horizon line, just below the clouds and mist that hovers, is the faint hint of the bright pinks and oranges as the sunsets. It seeps into the mist, muted and calm and beautiful.

Leaning into Yixing, wrapping his arms around him and with the warmth of his sweater and body close, Baekhyun looks out and tries to remember that there are happy endings. Happy endings don’t usually happen from boring stories, and perhaps he can still have one.

It makes him shiver, a short flicker before he feels Yixing press a kiss to the top of his head. Turning, Baekhyun closes his eyes and kisses Yixing, shivering even more as Yixing leans into him, sweet and everything that is important to him.

They have a little over a week left until Baekhyun is supposed to leave.

He’s shaking when Yixing pulls him into his arms, and kisses him. He’s shaking and kisses back passionately, pushing aside everything as it begins to overwhelm him and lets himself get lost in the kiss for now.

He can enjoy this for now, and be happy, while it matters. While it still counts.

♭

Junmyeon is not the kind of man to get furious easily.

“What do you _mean_ you need another fucking two weeks?!”

However, there are exceptions to this.

“It’s just two weeks,” Baekhyun says quickly. He’s just out of the shower and finally biting the bullet to call Junmyeon and tell him that things are running behind. As in, Beakhyun got a slight cold and Yixing, the most amazing human incarnate, spent the last few days helping him recover. It made him realize that Baekhyun is so in love with him he can’t do it.

He can’t drag Yixing to JYE at the end of the week and he can’t fight with him. He’s not going to give him the ultimatum of Baekhyun and the offer or nothing. He can’t do it, because he can’t give him up. 

There is a _slim_ chance that he might be able to figure out how to make it work if he has a little more time. An extension of sorts. “Please Junmyeon, I-“

“Baekhyun, do you remember what two weeks is in the industry?” Junmyeon practically yells over the phone. “It’s a long time! It can make or break an artist in terms of scheduling and withdrawal and popularity and promotion! Two weeks is not just simply time I can pull out of thin air!”

“I know, I know, I know,” Baekhyun fumbles, trying to put on socks while standing and cradling his phone against his shoulder. He’s going to be late, having agreed to help Jongin and Sehun with a bit of music track mixing they’d asked him about. They’re kind of paying him, so he figures it’s not a bad idea. “I know, I’m terrible and you have no idea where you went wrong with me. I should have my act together and you could have Yixing back with you before-“

“Yixing,” Junmyeon says, cutting him off.

“Yeah, that’s his name,” Baekhyun says, finally getting his socks on. “The guy I’m trying to seduce into coming to the company.”

“Maybe you weren’t ready for this,” Junmyeon says, and his voice is distant. “I shouldn’t have sent you out there. I knew your history with him and I thought I could trust you but-“

Baekhyun stands up, feeling like he’s just been smacked. “Don't you fucking dare,” he snaps, suddenly angry. “You sent me out here because you _knew_ I was close with him and could talk to him and because, yes, I know him, but that proves we already work well together.”

“Baekhyun-“

“And we _do_ work well together,” Baekhyun continues heatedly. “We always have. We get along and understand each other and I know his music as well as he knows my voice. We click, and can work in sync and you let me take this job because of that!” He’s breathing heavily when he stops, and his chest is hot with anger.

“Okay,” Junmyeon says. His voice is so distant, so masked that Baekhyun’s breathing catches as a chill goes through him. “Fine. Fucking fine. Two goddamn weeks and I’ll figure something out to deal with this on my end. You just do what you’re supposed to do on your end, and things will be okay.”

Relief floods through him, and Baekhyun lets it drop him onto the edge of his bed. Closing his eyes, he lets out a soft sigh of relief. “Thank you,” he says, voice nearly shaking.

Later, when Yixing meets him after doing an in-house piano repair for the Lee’s, he frowns, taking in Baekhyun. “Are you okay?” he asks, slipping into the seat opposite Baekhyun in the downtown café.

Taking in a shaking breath, Baekhyun smiles at Yixing, letting the filling breath expand and calm him down, steadying him. He reaches across the table to Yixing’s waiting hand and wraps his own around it. “Yeah,” he says, and squeezes tightly. “I’m okay.”

He curls up that night alongside Yixing, getting in late after staying out for an outdoor movie, and both of them climbing in through Yixing’s window. “You’re a bad influence on me,” Yixing laughs against his lips, pulling him close. Baekhyun just smiles, crowding closer into his arms and kisses him.

Tomorrow is Saturday and they’re going back to the café, promising Heechul to help him organize another open mic and they have the whole day to do whatever. Baekhyun’s phone is silent and still on Yixing’s desk. He lets out a soft breath as he lets Yixing pull him back against his chest, cradling him to his body and making him safe.

For now, it’s okay, and he’s able to close his eyes and just be happy.

♭

Saturday dawns gorgeous and sunny, the air warmer than it has been, the last cling to summer in the depths of fall. It’s beautiful, pulling people outside and into the sunshine. A few places are decorated for Halloween already, a few of the farms advertising on shop windows for hay mazes and a few activities with the tail end of the harvest.

“How about we go?” Baekhyun asks, looking up from the pamphlet in his hands to Yixing. Yixing looks back down at him from where he’s setting up speakers with Sehun in the café. His eyebrows are furrowed and his lower lip sticks out in confusion. “Cute,” Baekhyun says, smiling a bit as he brandishes the paper. “One of the hay mazes. It could be fun.”

“Do you remember the last time you did a hay maze?” Yixing asks, stepping down from his stool to leave the wiring to Sehun.

“No,” Baekhyun lies, painting an expression of innocence over his face.

“You set it on fire,” Yixing reminds it with a small laugh.

“Okay, so maybe I did,” Baekhyun concedes. “But to be fair, it was mostly Jongin’s fault for deciding to smoke and prove how badass we were in a highly flammable structure.”

“I still can’t believe you two made it out of there,” Yixing laughs, sitting down at the small table with Baekhyun.

“I’m extremely lucky,” Baekhyun suggests and Yixing laughs again, taking his hand in his own and patting it.

“Actually, I think Jongin is,” he says sympathetically. Siwon walks by and sneaks a small plate of biscotti to them with a very exaggerated wink. Baekhyun winks back just as exaggeratedly. Siwon beams at him, turning a moment later as Heechul yells for him at the bar.

“Jongin,” Baekhyun repeats. “The kid who set the chemistry lab on fire because he fell asleep during class with the gas to his Bunson burner on.”

“But he only got a detention out of it,” Yixing reminds, and pops a piece of biscotti into his mouth. Baekhyun slips his hand further into Yixing’s wrapping their fingers together. “I’d say that’s damn lucky, considering he could have died.”

“That would have been awful,” Sehun says, walking past and hauling a huge speaker in his wiry arms. “Thank God that didn’t happen.”

“See?” Yixing says, giving Baekhun a pointed look as he picks up another biscotti piece. “Jongin is the lucky one, not you.”

“So,” Baekhyun says, getting back to the topic. “Hay maze? I promise I won’t try to set it on fire or unintentionally set it on fire this time. I may sneak up behind you and try to scare you though.”

“You’re terrible,” Yixing chuckles as Baekhyun smiles at him. He picks up another piece of biscotti, the little sample pieces just enough for a bite, and holds it out for Baekhyun.

Baekhyun is just leaning over the table to take the little treat between his teeth when his phone vibrates on the table. Glancing down, Yixing’s fingers brushing his lips, Baekhyun sees the familiar name ‘ _Soojung_ ♡*~’ flashing as it buzzes. A chill spreads through him as he pulls back slowly and looks back at Yixing.

Yixing is smiling at him, unaware of his phone. Baekhyun, relieved, pulls it from the table and hangs up the call.

It’s been almost two months since he last talked to Soojung. Mostly just a ‘hey, I’m going away for a while so wait for me or something?’ to which he was given a long look and then laughter. Baekhyun hadn’t needed more, and while home he hadn’t really seen a need to contact her.

Even if it would have been more normal if he did, like Junmyeon kept telling him to.

Still, he has two more weeks, two more thankful weeks before he has to really think about her again. Before all of that starts up again. For now, he pushes it to the back of his mind, looking at Yixing across from him and feeling the warmth of their intertwined hands.

“So we can go?” Baekhyun asks, tapping his toes over the tips of Yixing’s shoes under the table. He smiles, even as he feels his phone vibrate in his lap under the table again. He ignores it. “It could be really fun. We could get all lost and not know where we are and it would test or survival skills.”

Yixing is laughing, leaning over the table to him, when the door to the café opens. “I don’t think-“

“Baekhyun!”

Baekhyun knows that voice. Stiffening, he watches as Yixing’s eyes slip to over his shoulder and his smile falters. Then a look of shock and confusion passes over it to morph into hurt. Baekhyun’s blood goes cold.

“Baekhyun Byun, pick up your damn phone, would you?” laughs a familiar pretty voice. Baekhyun turns to see the young woman walking across the café.

Long hair swinging about her, she pulls her oversized sunglasses from her stunning face. She’s wearing heels, washed jeans and a slouchy white tee under a stylish leather jacket. Soojung doesn’t appear to notice, smiling brilliantly as she makes her way directly for him.

“What are you doing here?” he asks hoarsely and feeling his world come crashing down around him.

“I’m looking for you, you idiot,” Soojung laughs, stepping up to him. She doesn’t hesitate to lean down and wrap her arms around him in a hug, Baekhyun stiff and with his heart slamming in his chest. He can’t breathe. Soojung can’t be here. She can’t be here when he’s with Yixing and hasn’t figured this out yet. She-

Baekhyun’s mind cuts short as Soojung pulls back and leans in and kisses him, her lips soft and small. She smells like flowers and Baekhyun wants so badly to shove her back.

But he can’t move, frozen in shock, his stomach so tight it feels like a rock.

As she pulls back, she’s smiling, looking down at him and tucking her hair behind her ear. “Miss me?” she asks.

♭

Soojung is staying in the inn in the center of downtown. She’s in town for about a week on a ‘personal visit’ to see her ‘boyfriend’. At least that's what the headlines read when Baekhyun sees them and the photos of himself and of Soojung walking around when he gets back to his unit.

To say Baekhyun is angry is a dramatic understatement. Barely a second after Soojung had come in and kissed him, Yixing had jerked so hard from the table that it sent their drinks all over the table. Baekhyun had tried to run after him, but between Soojung watching him and Yixing nearly punching him in the face as he’d tried to reach for him, that’d hadn’t gone very well.

Now, back at his unit, Yixing refuses to answer his calls. Grandmother Zhang had turned him away when he’d tried to stop by, a set look on her face and Yixing’s window had been locked. He wasn't in his room.

The worst is that Baekhyun couldn’t explain this to Soojung. Soojung, his ‘girlfriend’ who he doesn’t really date back at the company, mostly set up as Junmyeon introduced them as ‘a good match’ over a year ago. They barely see each other, but it’s something the media likes a lot.

Ex-pop singer turned music mentor Baekhyun dating the gorgeous young singer-actress Soojung Jung as the perfect young couple. They do look the part. Baekhyun is sick with himself as he sits with her at the café table he’d shared with Yixing, Soojung chattering about all her work and activities and playing with his fingers.

The whole time, Baekhyun sits in silence and is torn between yelling and breaking down into sobs, his throat so tight it burns to breathe. It may have worked, getting back to the company and quietly explaining to Soojung that they were going to have to stop. Let her down and let it fade.

It never felt like cheating, because by all intents and purposes, he’s in more of a relationship with _Chanyeol_ than he is her.

It messes literally everything up, bringing it all crashing down around him and he can’t breathe again. It’s worse, because this time, most of it is entirely his fault.

The other portion of the blame Baekhyun latches onto as soon as the words are out of Soojung’s mouth. Junmyeon had basically told her to come visit him. ‘To help encourage and convince Lay,’ had apparently been the reasons, making it about a team effort and more convincing opinions.

Baekhyun is livid. He’s in pain, and Baekhyun has never done well with pain of this kind. Junmyeon knows this. He’s seen it, which is partially why Baekhyun doesn’t even bother trying to contain himself.

“Baekhyun, nice to hear from you,” the calm voice says through the line. Baekhyun barely resist chucking his phone at the wall in fury.

“You _fucking_ son of a _Bitch_!” Baekhyun yells into his phone. 

“So nice to hear from you too,” Junmyeon says with that infuriating calm. “I take it Soojung arrived and has settled in. Is she staying with you or-“

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Baekhyun seethes. “Why would you send her out here to fuck with everything I’m doing? You can’t just do this to me! What’s the point of having her here, she doesn’t _know_ Yixing and she’s not-“

“She’s not there for Yixing, she’s there for you,” Junmyeon cuts in cooly.

“I don’t _want_ her here!” Baekhyun shouts and his voice cracks. There are tears down his face and he’s shaking. His heart feels like it’s being torn out, throat closing up as he grits his teeth hard enough to break.

He was so happy. So happy for just a bit, and almost thought that he could make it work. He thought he could stay happy with Yixing.

It’s all gone now. Yixing won’t talk to him, the slap of his voice and the look on his face when Baekhyun had gone after him enough to show him that.

“Baekhyun, she’s not there because it would be what you want,” Junmyeon tells him and Baekhyun stills, his grip nearly breaking his phone.

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“It means that I’ve spent the last two goddamn months taking down every photo and report that pops up of you and Lay essentially dating. People have eyes Baekhyun, even in your small bumfuck town and there is nothing more exciting than you getting into a homosexual relationship with a rising star. Nothing more exciting and nothing that would take away Lay’s career faster before it really sets off. It would paint you in the industry immediately.”

The grip on his phone is so tight, he can hear it straining. “What?”

“You,” Junmyeon says firmly. “You’ve not been recruiting, you’ve been dating him. There’s been photos of you showing up online-“ Baekhyun’s heart is beating wildly, “-together to the degree that it’s pretty apparent. And those are the subtle ones, considering there are other ones of you holding hands and very close.”

“What’s so wrong about people holding hands?” Baekhyun tries to defend but it comes out so weak, shaking and scared. “What’s so bad about that?”

“The other pictures where you’re seen kissing and look so infatuated with him that you’d become a liability to this company,” Junmyeon says, his voice raised a bit and Baekhyun’s knees give out. Clutching his phone, he stumbles to land on his bed. “Do you have _any_ fucking clue what kind of cover up I’ve been doing for you, Baekhyun?”

“You knew,” Baekhyun whispers, feeling empty and cold. He thinks of all the conversations when Junmyeon would question him, testing him and disapproving. “You knew I’m in love with him.”

“Actually, I didn’t know that,” Junmyeon tells him, and sounds terse. Then he sighs. “But now I do, because you just told me. I thought you were just infatuated before, that maybe you thought dating him gave you an upper hand. I’m kind of glad you’re not that cruel, but still.” He sighs again. Baekhyun bites his lip hard enough to taste the blood on his tongue, tears silently rolling down his face. “Why do you have to be such an idiot?”

“Being gay doesn’t make me an idiot,” Baekhyun bites back, his anger fading but still there. He hates this, and he still wants to slog Junmyeon in the jaw, but the heartbreak is stronger. 

“No, but not talking to me about this shit and running around in plain view basically publically fucking your boyfriend is really fucking stupid,” Junmyeon throws back and Baekhyun cringes. It had been so remote, so removed from the rest of the world, but Baekhyun should have known when the clip of him and Yixing playing had leaked. He had been dumb and careless.

“Yixing won’t even talk to me now,” Baekhyun tells Junmyeon, his throat too tight and clogging his voice. He sniffs, his vision blurred as he keeps on crying. He’s still wearing one of Yixing’s sweaters, and his fingers curl in the cuff. “Junmyeon, I can’t even get near him and there’s no way I can-“ his voice cuts out into a sob.

Then he’s crying, pulling his phone away from him and dropping it into his lap, his other hand coming up to clamp over his mouth to muffle his sobs. His whole body wracks with the force of them, convulsing as he curls into himself. He can barely breathe through the force of his sobs, and even with his hand over his mouth he’s barely able to hold back his voice.

Once, he watched Yixing walk away from him and didn’t understand why. It had hurt so badly he didn’t think anything could be worse.

He was wrong. This is worse, knowing this time exactly why Yixing walked away from him, and seeing the pain on his face had made it ten times worse. Baekhyun doesn’t hurt, he’s in agony.

It takes him a good few minutes of sobbing before he can pull himself together enough to raise the phone to his ear again. He almost doesn’t expect Junmyeon to still be there when he croaks out a ragged, “sorry.”

“Don’t do that,” Junmyeon tells him, voice softer. It has Baekhyun fisting his hand in the sweater, just over his heart.

“Cry?” Baekhyun tries to mock but it’s dead and hollow.

“Shut me out like that,” Junmyeon corrects him with a bit of firmness in his voice. “You did it before, and I hate it when you do it.”

“Because you can’t figure out what’s wrong?” Baekhyun feels so worn, tired and wrung out, scraped and stretched and dry and raw. He’s shaking, all of him shaking. 

“Because it worries me,” Junmyeon says quietly. “I didn’t send Soojung out there to make your life Hell-“

“Well, that’s kind of what happened,” Baekhyun interrupts him bitterly.

“I sent her out there because I thought it was for the best. Neither you nor Lay need a scandal before either of you can even get on your feet. Lay is just as the tip of his career, where others will try to find him and help him promote outside of JYE and want to endorse his music. If he’s tied to you and you’re here, it’s a liability he’ll bail, and doesn’t look good.”

Baekhyun swallows down a raw throat.

“The media love to dig up backstories, and it’s a miracle they haven’t really been able to get into yours and expose your history with your family,” Junmyeon continues and Baekhyun grimaces, recoiling. “I imagine that’s mostly because your parents are still shits and won’t talk to them. Which is really the best thing they can do for you.”

“Don’t try to make them sound nice,” Baekhyun asks, voice coming out in a croak. “They’re not.”

“I’m sorry,” Junmyeon apologizes. “I’m sorry Lay broke up with you because I sent Soojung, but I’m not sorry I sent her.”

“I’m still pissed at you,” Baekhyun bites out, spitting almost. “You don’t know what this feels like.”

“Don’t assume things about other people,” Junmyeon tells him and the edge in his voice has Baekhyun opening his eyes. “I understand that it’ll be hard for you to convince Lay to come to the company now that you’re not a romantic benefit, but-“

“Don’t-“

“-I need to know before we get into that topic if you can be honest with me again.”

Baekhyun pauses, tears still leaking slowly down his face as he stares without seeing. “Explain.”

“I need you to tell me what you really want to do,” Junmyeon says, and his voice is hushed, almost careful. “I’m asking you not as your boss, or manager, but as your friend who cares about you. I want to know what you want to do with this?”

The question goes beyond the levels of just asking if he wants to continue trying to recruit Yixing. It pushes past that to everything else Baekhyun has been grappling with the last few months to a year. Baekhyun clenches and unclenches his fist, trying to find an answer within himself.

It’s hard though, when his chest feels like if he breathes too deep it will collapse, and his throat aches with keeping all his emotions locked there. It’s hard when he’s still shaking and the can still smell Yixing on the sweater and it _aches_.

Losing Yixing isn’t just losing the person he loves, it’s losing that last part of the dream that had been himself he hadn’t realized he’d begun to hold onto again.

“I-“ his throat clogs and he has to cough, curling up a bit on the bed. “I don’t know,” he says in a whisper.

“Don’t close me out again,” Junmyeon says, and the tone of his voice is the same as when he’d found Baekhyun so many times on the edge of breaking down. “It scares me so much when you do that.”

The sincerity in Junmyeon’s voice is somehow warming, and a crude imitation of a smile tugs at Baekhyun’s lips. “Okay,” he murmurs.

♭

It’s amazing how in just a few months, waking up the walkway to the Zhang’s house has changed the entire scenery. Rather than lush green trees and flowers blooming, the lawn is growing tired and dull, the leaves red and yellow. Baekhyun has changed, and his nerves are far higher as he approaches the door and knocks.

The door opens, and Grandmother Zhang’s smiling and kind face drops into tired disappointment.

Gone is the nice tailored shirt and clothing, Baekhyun in one of his jackets and jeans, and he looks anything but composed. “I need to speak to him.”

“Baekhyun,” Grandmother Zhang says, and she looks at him with sadness in her eyes. “He’s not here, and even if he was, I wouldn’t let you see him.”

“Please,” Baekhyun falters out, and his voice shakes. It’s been two days, and Baekhyun hasn’t slept or been able to eat aside from to make Soojung stop pointing it out. “Please, I just want to talk to him.”

“You’ve hurt him,” she says, and her old voice is still soft. She doesn’t sound angry with him, but nor is she forgiving and letting him in. Baekhyun doesn’t hide how his hands shake, how his breathing is uneven. He can’t and he’s not going to force himself to. “Yixing has one of the biggest hearts of any I’ve ever seen, one of the curses of being my grandson I suppose. Right now, he’s hurting and you caused that.”

“I know,” Baekhyun rushes. Her words are gentle and soft but they wash into him like needles. “I know, and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry and I want to tell him and talk to him and explain and-“

“Go home, Baekhyun,” Grandmother Zhang tells him gently but without room for question on her old face.

“He is my home,” cracks out of Baekhyun before he can stop it. It’s only with a great deal of restraint he keeps from crying, though his vision clouds and he knows his tears are ready to fall.

Grandmother Zhang smiles at him sadly. “Love doesn’t mean we own people, and it doesn’t mean they won’t leave us when we don’t want them to,” she tells him. “Part of love is understanding when to be there, and when to leave the one you love for a while so they can grieve.”

“But I can-“

“Baekhyun, please understand,” she says, and steps back. “My grandson loves you very much, and because I love him, I love you, too. But even if he is your home, you aren’t his. At least not in the same way. Goodbye.”

The door closes with a soft sound, leaving Baekhyun without words to speak and with his face burning with the searing tracks of his tears.

He’s been crying for days, and he thought he had nothing left in him. Baekhyun keeps finding things that prove him wrong, and he really hates them.

“You look terrible,” Soojung says when Baekhyun meets her for lunch. He had agreed with Junmyeon that he would spend time with her. She doesn’t know about him and Yixing technically, and she is here to spend time with him. Truthfully, Baekhyun does like Soojung, just not the way that he’s supposed to.

She’s an interesting girl, kind under layers of an attitude and quirky in ways that Baekhyun enjoys and respects. She can keep up with him in conversation and the two of them had become friends easily because of it when they’d first met.

Before they’d been pushed together to date and it turned bitter to Baekhyun.

“Is that anyway to greet someone?” Baekhyun sighs, sitting opposite her at the small restaurant they’re eating at.

“I’m just being honest,” Soojung says, shrugging and sitting back. She looks at him, her eyes narrowed. “Couldn’t sleep? I know you had problems the other night. What’s up this time?”

“Cats,” Baekhyun says. “Outside last night. Horrible racket.” He doesn’t want to get into how he can’t sleep. How it’s too cold and he’s kept awake with his thoughts and running reminder of how he’s alone.

“Cats,” Soojung repeats, her head dipping a bit as she looks entirely skeptical.

“Have you never heard cats at night?” Baekhyun asks her. He is in desperate need of coffee. Or sleep. Or to have Yixing sitting and looking at him like he’s just spoke profanity in another language instead of the pretty young woman before him.

“No, Baekhyun,” Soojung tells him. “I didn't grow up in a place that had a specifically large population of especially vocal cats.”

“You missed out,” Baekhyun mumbles, opening his menu. He should be nicer, but he doesn’t have the energy. He also kind of mostly entirely doesn’t care.

“Clearly,” Soojung says, looking him over. “All those lost opportunities to look like I just suffered a bad breakup and am finding my only solace at the bottom of a whiskey bottle. Such a tragic loss in my life.”

Baekhyun bites down on his tongue as her words grind against him. He knows he doesn’t look great, especially not up to the standard that he used to have back in the city, at JYE where half the reputation was appearance as well as performance. But the way she phrased it cuts a bit too deep at a wound that is still very raw.

Closing his menu, he leans over the table. “What do you want to do today?” he asks her.

“What? We’re not going to sit here all day not ordering our food?” Soojung asks, and then smiles a bit, picking up her spoon and tapping it on the table.

“Well, I’ll at least keep that as a strong second option,” Baekhyun says, and tries to smile. He’s pretty sure it’s not very convincing, but he’s trying.

“Show me the town,” Soojung says, tapping her spoon definitively and sitting up, shaking her hair back. “I want to see everything.” She smiles and really, she is very pretty. Many men would do anything to date her and be in his position. Baekhyun sighs quietly.

Walking through a town that isn’t built for tourists is a bit strange, showing Soojung, who has clearly never been to a small town like this before, the shops and establishments. She asks a lot of questions, poking her nose into the shops and getting intrigued by simple things that Baekhyun never found that special. Growing up with it remove the novelty of most things, like the old watermill Soojung is intrigued by.

Stepping into the music shop, Baekhyun’s attention is drawn tight. Mr. Kim watches him sharply as they wander in. Soojung wanders a bit, drifting into the shop and Baekhyun turns to Mr. Kim.

“He’s not here,” Mr. Kim says flatly before Baekhyun can open his mouth. “Don’t ask.”

“Is he off on a job or-“

“I gave him the week off,” Mr. Kim says. “Don’t _ask_ Baekhyun. You’re city folk now. You forget that here, family isn’t just blood.”

It leaves Baekhyun shaken, leaving the shop with Soojung as Mr. Kim stares after him coldly. Hoping with his heart in his throat, Baekhyun stops into Amber’s store next, hoping they at least may not throw him out there.

“Baekhyun!” Sehun practically screeches from the counter before he door is even closed.

“Wow,” Soojung says, eyebrows raised as Sehun smiles at him. Jongin looks like he’s just been startled awake extremely unexpectedly, blinking dazedly. “Your friends?”

“This is Sehun and Jongin,” Baekhyun introduces, walking into the shop towards the two young men. It would be better if he had pulled her in by the hand, or a hand at her back, but he doesn’t want to touch her really. He’s too raw and she’s a reminder of his mistakes. She doesn’t deserve this, even if she’s oblivious. “Guys, this is Soojung.”

“Nice to meet you,” Soojung says, giving a little cute curtsey and Baekhyun almost snorts out laughing. Soojung must notice, throwing him a look over her shoulder and then striding to Jongin and Sehun. “It’s so nice to meet Baekhyun’s homebody friends.”

“H-homebody?” Sehun stumbles out, looking up to glare at Baekhyun. “You asshole.”

Baekhyun opens his mouth to reply but Soojung laughs, light and filling the shop. “Kidding,” she says and leans against the counter. “So what do you guys do?”

Baekhyun lets her talk, chatting with Jongin and Sehun and asking them about themselves. Baekhyun stays quiet. Sehun notices first, stepping closer to him as Soojung gets into a conversation with Jongin. “You okay?” Sehun asks. “I heard you and Yixing got into some sort of fight?”

Wetting his lips, Baekhyun says, “something like that,” and watches as Soojung pokes at an old computer in wonder. “It’s… It’s complicated.”

“That’s what Lu Han said when I asked him what was up with Yixing,” Sehun says. He’s watching Baekhyun in concern, and Baekhyun reaches to rest a hand on his shoulder, silently thankful for the thought. “I hope you guys can sort it out. He missed you while you were gone, and-“ Sehun takes in a deep breath and then lets it out again. “I’m glad you two were friends again. For both of you.”

It twists the knife deeper as much as it warms Baekhyun’s heart at Sehun’s care for himself and Yixing. Sehun always did care about people around him more than others might. It’s a rare quality, found more in towns like this than back in the city. “Thank you,” he says sincerely.

“Come on, boyfriend!” Soojung calls, leaning against the counter and looking at him. The term catches Baekhyun off guard, flinching back instinctively. Sehun’s head snaps to him, his eyes widening and brows furrowing.

“Boy…” he begins but Baekhyun jerks his head, shaking ‘no’ and throwing him a quick look. 

“What?” Baekhyun asks, walking up. Jongin looks more awake than ever, staring at him with wide eyes. It’s almost disconcerting to see him looking so thrown off guard.

“You're her boyfriend?” Jongin asks, staring at him and only him.

“Well, most of the time I call him ‘asshole,’ but he didn’t sleep well last night so I’m trying to be nice,” Soojung says, flashing a smile at Baekhyun.

“He’s your boyfriend?” Jongin asks, turning his attention to Soojung now. “But he-“

“That’s nice of you,” Amber steps into the room, speaking loudly. Jongin jumps, shoulders flinching up and mouth snapping closed. Amber is smiling, beaming at the room until her eyes land on Baekhyun, and harden. “Though I can assure you that you can call Baekhyun ‘asshole’ all you want. It’s a pretty well deserved title most of the time.”

Baekhyun winces, but knows he deserves it. 

“I don’t always intend to be an asshole,” Baekhyun says, looking at her and hoping she hears the meaning in his voice. “Sometimes things just go wrong in ways I didn’t ever want them to.”

“I see,” says Soojung, looking a little lost as she looks back at him. “Well, I think we all have times like that. The important part is to remember what’s important.”

“Right,” Baekhyun says, and his eyes shift back to Amber. _I know I fucked up, I know he’s hurting, and I’m sorry._ “Like the people in our lives.”

“And ice cream,” Soojung adds, and smiles again, pushing herself off the counter. “Come on, there’s got to be an ice cream place here, right?” She turns back just as she reaches Baekhyun, looping her arm into his and tugging him close. “It was really nice meeting you,” she says, looking back at the group in the shop. “I hope to see you again soon.”

“Likewise,” Amber answers as Jongin and Sehun look a bit lost at what to do. “Enjoy your time while you visit us, Soojung.”

“I liked her,” Soojung says as they walk down the street, headed to Heechul’s café.

“Amber is nice,” Baekhyun says, glancing to where Soojung has her arm loosely looped with his. It makes his throat tighten further. Siwon stares when they walk in, his eyes on Baekhyun and, thankfully, he looks less annoyed and instead just distressed. “You guys have ice cream, right?” Baekhyun asks, walking up to the counter.

“Are you sure you want ice cream?” Heechul asks, his hair pulled back in a half pony tail. “I heard it doesn’t go that well if your heart is already ice cold.” Baekhyun flinches, wincing back and biting down the reply as his stomach clenches hard. He hates having this as an attack from all sides. One day, the town was warm and kind, accepting him like he was once more a part of them.

Today, they’re practically hostile.

“Cold hearts can still break,” Baekhyun says as Soojung scans the drinks menu.

“Of course we have ice cream,” Siwon cuts in, wiggling into Heechul’s side and smiling at Baekhyun. At least Siwon is personable. Heechul is smiling like he has a rotten oyster under his tongue.

“Chocolate please,” Soojung requests, stepping up beside Baekhun. “Only one spoon though.” She flashes a smile to them both before turning to Baekhyun. “What do you want?”

Baekhyun orders a coffee, hoping maybe it will give him energy away from his exhaustion. Siwon finally manages to get a biscotti snuck onto his saucer and Baekhyun smiles at him in appreciation when he gets it. 

It’s easy to excuse himself early, dropping Soojung off at her Inn and going back to his unit. He looks like he’s been up for days, tired and worn enough to barely speak. He’s exhausted, and it shows. It helps greatly when he wants nothing to do but get away from Soojung and collapse.

Being around her is like constant sandpaper against his heart, digging deep and making him burn. He can’t do this. He can’t go back to pretending to be her boyfriend, that things are fine. It’s not just here, but at the company.

When he was only here by himself, happy with the prospect of Yixing possibly coming back with him to JYE, he had thought that might make things easier. He’d have a ‘girlfriend’ and it’d be an easy thing to say when people began asking too many questions about his and Yixing’s relationship.

Now, Baekhyun realizes not only how selfish that is and cruel to both Soojung and Yixing, but how he, himself, cannot do it. It’s barely been three days and he’s falling apart. He can’t be with Soojung and lie to her, to himself, to others and pretend he’s interested in her. It’s not fair to her, or to himself.

For years, he was pushed into things that made him hide who he was, what he is. Thinking back on it, he realizes that this is what Yixing had alluded to at times, how much Baekhyun had to constantly cover up about himself. With Yixing, he didn’t do that at all.

Baekhyun may go back to JYE, but he’s going to go back and try to do things right this time. He’s lost Yixing, and he wants to fix it so badly, this misery that he’s stuck in draining him.

He’s had to give up on so much in his life, he doesn’t want to do it anymore. He’s miserable, with his life and himself. That’s not going to change unless he fixes it.

The first step in that will be what he’s doing now, which is actually deciding to do something instead of leaving it to later.

Tomorrow, he’ll talk to Soojung. He’ll break up with her, and explain himself and tell her why.

Then he’s going to stop trying to think of ‘maybe’s and find a way to apologize to Yixing. Apologize and try to fix the mess he caused.

Taking in a deep shaking breath, he runs his hand through his hair, and picks up his phone.

♭

_As long as you’re sure, then I’m not going to stop you. Just remember that this kind of decision isn’t one you can take back after you’ve done it._

_Good luck, Baekhyun :)_

_-Jummyeon_

♭

The tabletop is scattered with little bits of shredded napkin. He’s wearing one of the nice shirts he’d packed, almost exactly the same as what he arrived in, dressed properly for once. Under the table, his knee keeps bouncing, and he breathes out periodically to keep calm.

Beside the pile of napkin massacre is a half drunk coffee. Baekhyun had almost asked Heechul for a direct injection of caffeine, but was a little worried Heechul might actually give him one. Baekhyun likes him, but Heechul is just a little bit terrifying in his own way.

The coffee helps a bit to wake him up, the sugar he put in it also helping. He’d spent the morning running a few errands before calling Soojung and asking her to meet him at the café. He’ll pay for her breakfast, but he doubts he’ll be staying for the meal.

When Soojung arrives, Baekhyun has decimated about three napkins, and been given worried looks by Siwon continuously. Most of his attempts at smiling seem to fail pretty terribly, so he ends up just focusing on his hands. As Soojung walks in, he stands, walking to guide her to the counter to order.

Seated back at the table, a tall hot latte in front of her, Baekhyun takes a deep breath.

“You have something to talk to me about,” Soojung says, one eyebrow cocked and Baekhyun chokes.

“What?”

“You shredded a small napkin family and have obviously been waiting here and I _know_ you and you’re about as much of a morning person as Chanyeol is demure.” Soojung slowly lowers her coffee, a small smile on her lips. “So what’s the deal? And don't make me smack it out of you, because this is a new manicure and I don’t want to mess it up by hitting you.”

“We have to break up,” Baekhyun tells her, the words slipping out of his mouth easier than he thought they would. His stomach still is in a knot and his hands are clenched under the table, but it’s not as bad as he thought. He breathes out as Soojung stills, her eyes focusing on him more intensely. “I’m sorry, but-“

“We _have_ to break up or you want to break up with me?” Soojung asks. She’s watching him carefully, not looking in the least bit upset, just a little curious and a little concerned.

“There’s a difference?” Baekhyun asks, frowning a little at her reaction. This isn’t what he expected, though Soojung always was thankfully level headed. More than some of the other female artists at JYE.

“Of course there is,” Soojung laughs, sitting back and crossing her arms over her chest. She’s wearing the stylish leather jacket again over a floral dress, her hair down on one side. “One version is where you’re doing this because you’re told to, and the other is because of your own feelings.”

Baekhyun blinks. “I’m breaking up with you because I’m just, I don’t-“

“Words, Baekhyun,” Soojung coaxes. “You need to use your words on this one. I can’t read your mind and, trust me, I never really want to. You’re going to have to blunder your way through this verbally.”

“You-“ Baekhyun stops, shaking his head. “I don’t want to date you.”

“Okay,” Soojung says, and picks up her coffee, sucking the milk foam off the top. “Is that it? I mean, I hope we can stay friends and not, you know, have to stage a huge break up where we have this big falling out thing and the media has a field day.” She scoffs, putting down her coffee again. “It’s going to have a field day anyway. We were the _perfect_ couple.”

“Aside from the fact we were barely dating,” Baekhyun says, frowning at her. This isn’t what he expected. “I’m sorry-“

“Are you apologizing to me for not forcing us to date in this farce of a relationship?” Soojungs asks. She shakes her head, leaning back and her hair falls so prettily. She really is stunning. “Baekhyun, we were set up.”

“I know, but-“ Baekhyun frowns, swallowing down a throat that is finally relaxing a bit from the tension stored there earlier. Then it clicks. “You don’t want to date me either.”

Soojung gives him a long sigh and a fond smile. “You’re a fun guy,” she says. “Really, and whoever gets you is lucky. But the only real thing about our relationship was that we were alive and breathing and knew how to hold hands when cameras were on us.” She lets out a soft laugh. “You’re a great guy, but you’re not my type. And I’m not yours either.”

The slow spread of relief begins in the center of Baekhyun’s chest, reaching along his limbs and allowing him to breathe a little easier. “No,” he says, a sigh in his voice. “You’re really not.”

“Fine by me,” Soojung says with a coy grin. She pauses as Siwon drops by her breakfast plate, a few eggs and freshly baked pastries. “Honestly, it was getting old having to try to talk to people about you when both of us clearly weren’t even into each other. Like that one time we had sex?” She scoffs, tearing off a piece of pastry between her pretty fingers. “I’m so glad we never did that again.”

Baekhyun stares at her, completely waving off this break up like it’s just him telling her he’s forgotten to bring an umbrella during a rainy day. If anything, she’s acting even less concerned, as he’s seen her huddle moodily under awnings from rain, pouting at it balefully.

Slowly, unbidden, a smile spreads over his lips. “Thanks,” he says, and finally relaxes into his seat.

“Honestly, I was aware from the beginning us dating wasn’t really ‘real’,” Soojung says, looking at him with both eyebrows raised. “I thought you knew too.”

“Junmyeon made it seem like it was more…”

“Oh, well that’s Junmyeon,” Soojung says, waving her fork as if pushing Junmyeon away with it. “He’s intense. Song Qian never put me under any assumptions.”

“Oh,” Baekhyun says, watching her eat. It’s a little surreal, but also nice. This is the side of Soojung he liked, where she was fun and easy to talk to. Though he doesn’t have the words, it’s far more comfortable. Like a barrier has been lifted between them.

“So, who is it?” Soojung asks, looking up and cradling her coffee in her hands. Baekhyun blinks. “The person you _do_ care about. I know a good gig when I have it, and you wouldn't break up with me unless you were invested in someone else. So, who is it? Do I know them?” She scrunches up her nose. “Please tell me it isn’t Hwasa.”

Baekhyun, who had been taking a sip of his coffee, promptly chokes, sputtering into coughing. Soojung makes absolutely no move to help him, just watching in vague interest as he gets control over himself. “No, dear God, no,” he says, voice rough.

“And you can’t have Song Qian because she’s mine,” Soojung says. She leans over the table, scooting forward. “So who is it?”

Baekhyun takes a moment to consider lying, and then decides screw it. He’s tired of hiding, and already told himself the night before he was going to stop. He is who he is and that’s not going to change. “Do you remember when you first came in here and saw me?” he asks, his heart beginning to speed up in his chest at the memory of Yixing’s face. “The guy who was with me?”

Instead of looking shocked, Soojung lets out a little laugh clapping her hands and leaning to rest her elbows on the table. She’s grinning wide, giving him a sort of smug look. “I _knew_ it,” she says, smile triumphant. “I knew as soon as you ran after him. The look on your face when you saw me and-“ She stops, and her face softens a bit. “He didn’t know you and I were ‘dating’ did he?”

“No,” Baekhyun says quietly, feeling his stomach clench again. Running his fingers along the rim of his coffee mug, he swallows, trying to wet a dry throat. “He didn’t, and I didn’t- we weren’t really dating and-“

“And you thought I cared.” Soojung reaches over the table, taking one of his hands in her own and squeezing lightly. “I’m sorry. And I know this might hurt more than make you feel better, but for what it’s worth the look on his face when I saw him run means he loves you back.”

“I know he does,” Baekhyun says quietly. “The problem is we have a, well, we have history. It’s complicated.”

Soojung hums, her hand still around Baekhyun’s. “Was that Lay?”

Baekhyun’s throat and heart throb at the name and he lets his eyes fall. “His name is actually Yixing,” he tells her. “We started together, and we were lovers then. Things got bad, and so when Junmyeon-“ He takes in a deep shuddering breath. “I love him,” he admits, looking up at Soojung.

“Yeah,” she says, smiling. There isn’t pity on her face, just listening acceptance. “I can see that. You’ve kind of looked like a heartbroken train wreck since I walked in here that day.”

“I came back to recruit him,” Baekhyun explains. “To get him to sign and I’d be his mentor.”

“I bet he turned you down,” Soojung says with a soft hum.

“It would be easier if he just let me do it though,” Baekhyun says. “I know it sounds crude, but if I was his mentor then we could, well, it could work.”

“Of course it could work,” Soojung says with a laugh. “It’s worked for me.” Baekhyun blinks, staring at her, startled. She shrugs. “You’re not the only gay person who works at our company and has to hide it. I’m just lucky that the woman I’m dating is also my manager.”

The realization hits Baekhyun and lets out a laugh, sitting back a bit and staring at Soojung’s smug face. “So you and Song Qian? How long?”

“Since before you and I were set up, I think,” Soojung says, looking off and squinting a bit. “She was my manager for only a bit before we got together. It’s a little easier for us, seeing as how there’s that whole lesbianism fixation men have with women making out and fucking. They just kind of ignore how lesbians don’t really give a shit what men want when they’re eating each other out. Girls being intimate is seen as us just having fun, and it makes it a little easier to fly under the radar.” She laughs as Baekhyun can’t help the slightly amazed grin on his face. “I told you that you weren’t my type.”

“So it works though,” Baekhyun says, watching her.

Soojung stills, taking him in carefully. “Yeah,” she says and frowns a bit. “But it’s really not easy. It’s a lot of work and a lot of hiding and a lot of us lying to make it work. Like how you and I had our whole thing. And I don’t get the impression from you that if Yixing were up for that, he’d have agreed.”

Taking that in, Baekhyun nods slowly. “There are other things,” he says.

“It’s complicated,” Soojung parrots, actually looking a little sympathetic now. She turns her plate towards him, offering up one of the uneaten pastries. Baekhyun takes it thankfully.

“Yeah,” Baekhyun says. “The thing is, I kind of agree with him though. On some things.” He tears a piece of the pastry off, popping it in his mouth. “Being back here, with him, and doing what we did back before everything happened, it’s reminded me about what I used to want to do.”

“Which was, what, be a singer?” Soojung asks and her eyes widen a little as Baekhyun nods slowly.

“I miss it,” he admits. “Not the insanity, but singing and being on stage and music. We started as underground, working here and were going to…”

Trailing off, Baekhyun’s mind begins to work faster, stilling as that admission sets his memory working.

Five years ago Baekhyun and Yixing had been underground start up boys who were scouted by Taeyeon to work as a duo playing their original music on stage. That was what they wanted, to play and sing and do their own thing and share it with people, to perform and live together. They didn’t want a massive top space in the spotlight, they wanted to do what they loved, love each other. With doors closing to them, Baekhyun had his focus narrowed, when really he should have been trying to broaden his spectrum.

“Shit,” Baekhyun says, and looks up at Soojung’s confused and slightly wary expression. “I can do it.”

“Great,” Soojung says, frowning at him as he stands up, popping the last bit of pastry into his mouth. “What are you doing exactly?”

“I know how we can do it,” Baekhyun says. His heart is hammering in his chest. He pulls Soojung up, a lightness in him that is like the release of binds around his chest. “How we can do the music together, how we can do what we wanted to do five years ago, and we can do it together.”

“I really hope you’re talking about you and this Yixing guy, and not us,” Soojung says, following him from the café as he leaves. “Because I’m very happy with my girlfriend. And she can deck you.” Laughing, Baekhyun turns to her and leans close, pressing a swift kiss to her cheek. She lets out a little shriek, shoving him back and making a face at him. “I really hope this isn’t part of being friends with you. No wonder Chanyeol thought you wanted his dick for the first few months you were friends.”

“Get used to me,” Baekhyun tells her, the beats of his heart less shaking and pained and instead stronger. Determined. “I’m not going to try to be anything but me from now on.”

“Oh good,” Soojung says, following him. “At least you’re _clearly_ less dramatic now. What a change.”

When Baekhyun turns to her though, she’s smiling at him, and he can’t help but grin back.

♭

When the image pixelates into focus, Baekhyun sees Chanyeol with his knees tucked up to his chest, spinning in slow lazy circles in his office chair. “Morning,” Chanyeol yawns as he spins by. “You’re up unnaturally early. For you.”

“I have an idea,” Baekhyun tells him. Initially he had thought of just calling Chanyeol as soon as he checked Soojung out of her room. He’d stepped back though, emailing Chanyeol to call him. All around town it’s like there’s been an alert set up for him, and he knows Yixing has been avoiding him.

It’s a small town, and there aren’t many places to hide. Baekhyun will find him at some point, though. He’s not leaving until he talks to him, and he’s going to do whatever he can to have Yixing with him when he drives over the state lines. That means not rushing into things without working them through. It means when he makes his decision, he’s got all his cards lined up.

“You have an idea,” Chanyeol says, spinning around again and then catching himself, reversing direction. “Well, is it a good idea or is it the kind of idea that gets you arrested?”

“It’s a good idea,” Baekhyun says, grinning as he watches Chanyeol lazily drift past. “Stop spinning, you’re making me dizzy.”

“I’ll definitely just keep spinning then,” Chanyeol says, and sticks out his tongue as he drifts by again. “And I’m disappointed. I was hoping it was the kind of idea that might get you arrested. Those are always somehow fun.”

“You say this like you spend your Fridays going out and challenging the law for kicks,” Baekhyun scoffs.

“Who is to say I don’t?” Chanyeol protests, reversing direction again.

“I know for a fact you sit and catch up on all the anime you missed during the week on Fridays,” Baekhyun tells him and Chanyeol finally stops spinning. “And you ask me why you don’t have a relationship.”

“I’m too good for most people,” Chanyeol says but looks a bit accepting of Baekhyun’s valid statements regardless. “Okay, so what’s up?”

“How long until your music business thing is off the ground?” Baekhyun asks him.

Chaneyol blinks, his big eyes widening almost comically before he settles closer, clearly interested. “About a year or so? If I get the funding I can probably start working with some people to get it moving who can handle some of the industry side.”

“Count me in,” Baekhyun says and Chanyeol blinks. Baekhyun is a little startled himself, but this is it. Chanyeol’s eyebrows do a great many things as he leans closer to the computer, and a low burn begins in Baekhyun’s stomach. “You said that the artists have complete control over their music, their work. It’s just a group where they all work together to make music and you’ll give them the space and resources to do it, right?”

“Yeah,” Chanyeol says, leaning in a bit. “Like, you know how a lot of small musicians will sell themselves and go around and self promoting, trying to put stuff up online for purchase? Just selling CD’s and stuff to shops and other venues in hopes they sell? Well, I want to do something where they can get facilities to make quality recordings and it’s not under labels. They can still have their freedom but with more organization and security.” Shifting in his chair, Chanyeol fixes him with a look. “What do you mean you’re in? You’re with JYE, and a mentor and-“

“And I’ll partner with you,” Baekhyun tells him. “I know the business side of this and you know the production. Plus, I’m kind of a big deal.”

“You’re retired,” Chanyeol scoffs at him. “Too old for this shit, if I remember you at one point saying so.”

“What if I get back into it?” Baekhyun suggests. “I get back into it with you, and bring along someone else and we’ll be your leading group?”

“That depends on how good you are,” Chanyeol says. “And how appealing you are.”

“Rude, I’m plenty appealing,” Baekhyun says. He’s smiling now, almost fit to break. The interest from Chanyeol is almost pouring through the computer as he leans closer to it. “I promise, you’ll like the option when I send it to you.”

“Don’t be so cocky,” Chanyeol laughs. “But seriously, Baekhyun. You’re not kidding about this?”

“I’m not,” Baekhyun says. This is Chanyeol’s work, his dream, his goal and it’s amazing. Baekhyun knows what he wants, and he’s remembered finally what he wants.

He finally has an answer to Junmyeon’s question. 

“Well, if you’re in, then I’m game,” Chanyeol says. “Just be ready to leave JYE in a year and launch with me.”

“I can work with a year,” Baekhyun says, grinning at Chanyeol. “I’ll send you the demo in a bit of your first artist.”

♭

_You’re kidding me._

The message from Chanyeol has Baekhyun smiling as he checks his phone.

_If this works out, then it’s no joke. I swear._

He gets back a large assortment of what he’s pretty sure is every smiley face Chanyeol has on his messenger. Opening up his email, he creates a new mail, filling in the recipient with Junmyeon’s name.

Baekhyun writes only one sentence.

__

I know what I want.

Sitting back, Baekhyun presses send and breathes out slowly. It’s a little scary being back here, with what he wants at his fingertips and know that he’s so close. It’s also exciting, and the feeling begins to thrum in him. There is only one more thing left, which is to talk to Yixing.

To tell Yixing that he’s listening, he trying to understand, and he’s not going to let him go this time.

♭

There is the saying that if you love something, to let it go. If it comes back, then it was forever, but if it doesn’t, then it was never meant to be.

There are parts of that phrase that can be taken into all aspects of relationships. The words can be used to explain and understand a parent struggling to let go their child leave home, and when that child returns, the parent is overjoyed. The words can be used to explain when those in love let go of something they cherish, wishing that the object of their affections may come back one day with the love they gave returned.

It’s easy to use them to explain things, to let relationships end and to let things go; to say it was simply never meant to be. It’s easier to let go than it is to fight for something, to hold on when things get hard than it would just be easier to let it fade. Holding on is always harder than letting go.

Letting go is something Baekhyun knows how to do. 

Sometimes, it’s hard; like letting go of the hope that his family could ever accept and love him for who he is. It took him years and a lot of pain to do that, to stop holding onto that pain and the futile hope that one day his father and mother wouldn’t look at him like he disgusted them somehow.

There have been times when it was easy. Letting go of his hometown had been easy, running to the city after Taeyeon with Yixing at his side. It was like flying then, and he’d been so happy to let go.

What Baekhyun experienced the most though was not the pain of letting go, but being let go. When he’d worked so hard, sacrificed so much and endured the pain and struggle and given things up and then, when he had that idea of maybe, hanging by a thread, Yixing had let him go.

Baekhyun isn’t stupid, and he knows as he walks up the main street to the Zhang’s farm that Yixing didn’t stop loving him five years ago.

Five years ago, Yixing chose to let him go, to love him enough to be able to do that, to let him go and walk away and give him their dream.

Now, Baekhyun isn’t mad at him, but he does know that while the intent had been loving, to Baekhyun it was nothing but betrayal. 

The saying does hold true though, because Baekhyun has let go of so many things, and been let go. Yet they came back, his music, his love for singing, the dreams he let slip through his fingers once more filling up his skies with promise. He came back, he returned, even though Yixing let him go, he came back.

Because he loves him.

Once, Baekhyun had promised Yixing the idea of forever, and had it promised back to him. He had thought that that promise was lost, amid the years and the pain and the distance- the forever too fragile to hold onto.

Life isn’t consistent though, fluxing and changing with ups and downs and plateaus. Forever isn’t only five years. It’s longer than Baekhyun or Yixing will ever live.

He’d thought he broke that promise when he never did. He just lost track of things, confused and young and without any clear idea in his mind. He had been too confused by himself and the world.

If the saying is true though, and after being let go, the sign of that love being forever is when it comes back, then this is just that.

It works in strange ways, as the methods in which Baekhyun came back weren’t what he might have expected, but regardless, he never stopped loving Yixing in his five years. It faded and was hidden and Baekhyun told himself he didn’t, but it didn’t make the love die.

A love like that won’t die. A love like that is forever, and Baekhyun isn’t going to let himself lose his forever again.

♭

It’s almost ten at night when Baekhyun walks up the front path to the Zhang’s farmhouse. He doesn’t check the side of the house where Yixing’s window is, and he doesn’t crawl in through it. He’s pretty sure it’s locked and he doesn't want to hide and sneak around.

He knocks raptly on the door, the dim lights from inside barely illuminating the area as Baekhyun steps back and waits. He’s wearing more comfortable clothing than he wore out to meet Soojung in. The air is chilly, November just a few days away, and Baekhyun pushes down a shiver at the cold.

He has nothing with him, everything he needs in himself.

There is a soft click of the lock being undone, and Baekhyun watches as the main door opens. “Baekhyun,” Grandmother Zhang’s voice says tiredly, her form shadowed in the darkness. “Goodness, I would never have expected to see you actually use the door, especially this late at night.”

“May I please come in?” Baekhyun asks her. It’s been about a week since Soojung came in while he and Yixing were in the café. About a week since it all fell apart and Baekhyun didn’t know what to do.

“He’s-“

“I know he’s here,” Baekhyun tells her, keeping his voice even. “I heard him playing piano when I walked up earlier.” He can see her eyes glimmer in the darkness. “I know he’s upset with me, and I know he’s hurting, but I really need to talk to him.” He takes one step closer to the door, taking in a soft breath. “I want to fix what I’ve done, and make it so this never happens again. I want him to understand that I’m not lying when I say I love him.”

“You’re a good boy, Baekhyun,” Grandmother Zhang sighs, stepping back a bit. “And he’s a bit of a mess, right now. It’s not as bad as last time, but he’s not good with pain when it comes to you.”

“I’m sorry,” Baekhyun says earnestly. “May I please see him?”

“Just remember,” Grandmother Zhang says, pushing open the screen door to let him inside. “If you hurt my grandson again, I’ll throw you in the meat grinder.”

It gets a small smile from Baekhyun as he slips quietly inside. “And the reason I’m not there right now is?”

“Because you’re so cute still,” Grandmother Zhang teases, poking him in the side to urge him into the house. Then she quiets. “He loves you, even if it hurts him right now, he loves you with all his silly heart. And no matter what I do, I know that I can’t make his pain go away.” Baekhyun swallows, his heart swelling with a flutter in his chest as he looks down at the old woman. “You can.”

“I’m going to try,” Baekhyun tells her, a promise in his voice.

“Good,” Grandmother Zhang says, reaching up and cupping his cheek with a soft warm and wrinkled hand. “If you need me, I’ll be asleep.”

The door to Yixing’s room is just barely cracked, light from inside spilling out into the hall as Baekhyun makes his way closer. Peeking inside, he can see Yixing sitting on his bed, notebooks and papers strewn about him with his guitar in his lap. He looks exhausted, large circles under his eyes and a beanie on, still wearing one of his favorite tanks that hang too low on his chest.

Baekhyun softly knocks.

“Come in,” Yixing says, and his voice is weary. He jerks when he looks up, stiffening and his eyes widening as Baekhyun push the door open, before they narrow. “Get out.”

“No,” Baekhyun says, and Yixing frowns at him as he walks into the room. “No, I want to talk to you.”

“I don’t want to hear-“ Yixing stops himself, eyes closing and taking in a shaking breath. “Please, just leave.”

“I’m not leaving,” Baekhyun tells him, staring at him. There is a light dusting of stubble along his jaw, meaning he hasn’t shaved and his skin is paler, exhausted. He hasn’t been sleeping either. “I’m not leaving until I fix this.”

“Fix this,” Yixing repeats, his voice dry. “Fix what, Baekhyun? Fix your job? Fix your future and your world and make sure that you keep what you want and the things that work best for you? Fix it so that you can use me while you date someone you have no interest in to lie about who you are?” Yixing’s face twists into a grimace, and he puts down his guitar, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees, hands pillowing against his forehead. “I don't want that life with you.”

“Good,” Baekhyun says, watching Yixing and wanting to reach out and touch. To reassure with his hands and hold that he’s not here to force that on him. “I don’t want it with you either. I’m glad we agree.”

Yixing’s head has snapped up. He’s staring at Baekhyun with perplexity on his features, and his eyes guarded. “Fine,” he says coldly a moment later, and stands, making to walk from the room.

Jumping to catch him, his heart slamming into his throat, Baekhyun grabs for him, hand wrapping around Yixing’s wrist. “Stop!” Yixing tries to yell but it cracks. Jerking his hand away, Baekhyun holds onto him. Yixing’s eyes are brimming with unshed tears. “Just let go of me.”

“No!” Baekhyun almost yells, holding strong and staring at Yixing, willing him to listen. Yixing’s eyes go wide, bright and hints of anger mix with his distraught eyes. Baekhyun own determination heats in his chest and he tightens his grip. 

“I’m not going to let go of you, Yixing. I will never let go of you. I keep being told to let go of the things I care about, that it’ll be better if I do, but all that does is make us hurt. You let go of me once. I didn't stop hurting until I saw you again and remembered what it felt like to be with you. To be loved by you as much as I love you. I’m not going to let go, because I don’t want to lose you like you lost me. Love isn’t always one sided, and neither is pain.”

Yixing’s chest is shaking as he breathes, staring at Baekhyun. “Please let go,” he says, voice shaking. “I can’t do what you’re going to ask me to do. I can’t give myself up like you did. I can’t ignore who or what I am so other people like me more. And I can’t live with you close enough to me that I know you’re right next to me, but I can never have you.” A few tears spill down his cheeks.

If Yixing wasn’t so tired, he wouldn’t be telling Baekhyun this. He’d be pushing him away, telling him no, and he’d be stronger. But Baekhyun knows what limits are, having reached his own many times, and Yixing is so tired, so worn and spent from this. 

From him.

“Okay,” Baekhyun tells him, softer, and relaxing his grip a little so it’s less intense. “Then you don’t have to. But _please_ hear me out.”

“I don’t want to work for JYE,” Yixing tells him blatantly, not budging when Baekhyun tries to pull him closer. “I don’t want someone telling me how to make my music and fix it in ways that are for me to be mass produced. I was fine selling my own music and-“

“Then you never have to be one of their stars,” Baekhyun tells him. Yixing pauses, staring at him. “Right now, I work there, as a mentor, and I was sent out here to try to recruit you as a future artist of the company. If you agreed, you’d spend the next six months being groomed for it. They’d perfect the album, the sound, the image, the style, the marketing pitch. They’d create and perfect who you are and why people like you.”

“I don’t want that,” Yixing says immediately, bristling.

“I know,” Baekhyun says, trying to stay as calm as he can, worried Yixing is going to run on him at any moment. “I know that isn’t what you want, but please just _listen_.” Yixing swallows, and stills. “If you still don’t like it when I’m done, you can tell me no, and that’s it.”

“Okay.” Yixing swallows and his eyes remain on Baekhyun, wary.

“If you agree to come back, I, as your mentor, would be around you always,” Baekhyun explains. “I’d be a little like your manager, except closer. I’d be in charge of your image, your music, your design, and who you are. This means that I’m the one pitching to the members and the directors what you are, what makes you interesting and selling to the market. That’s all up to me, and I want you to do what you want.”

“What if it changes?” Yixing asks, frowning at him.

“It won’t,” Baekhyun says, and Yixing’s mouth tightens. “Because I’m leaving the company after a year to help a close friend build his own company.” He watches as Yixing’s eyes flicker, a bit of a rush in his chest to continue. “It’s a fair operating company that will allow artists and underground musicians organization and resources to get themselves recognized. Artists will be completely in charge of their own work, what it is, how they sell it, and what they do with it, and we act as a springboard.”

“You…” Yixing is staring at him.

“I just filled out the paperwork to make myself the cofounder today,” Baekhyun tells him. “And I put in a bid for the primary act.”

“But-“

“I’m not asking you to go back with me to become a cog in a corporate machine, selling out and changing who you are just so we can hide to be together,” Baekhyun says, and his voice wavers. It all worked easily when he just needed to explain it, getting it all out and through him so Yixing could finally listen to him. Knowing his direction this time helps a lot, where he’s not pushing for things he can’t quite explain.

This is like it’s being pulled from him, his own written song that he understands and just needs to convey so Yixing can hear the harmonies in it.

“I’m asking you to come back with me, so we can spend some time figuring out how to work together,” Baekhyun tells him. “Right now, we’re back together, but we’re not the music we used to be. With one year at JYE, not only do you have the publicity behind you, you have the time and training. We may not be able to be as free there, but it’s small compared to after, when we can do whatever we want.”

Yixing’s breathing is shaking, but he’s not straining to pull his wrist free, looking at Baekhyun like he’s not sure he’s ever seen him before. “And if the start-up falls through?”

“Then we leave anyway and do it on our own,” Baekhyun tells him. “I’m well known and you’ll have the initial rep and a bang out debut EP by the time we’re done with JYE. I’ve more than paid my dues there.” He lets his hand slip from Yixing’s wrist, taking the chance and slipping their hands together.

Yixing doesn’t pull away, just watches him still like he’s almost scared to say yes.

“We can start over,” Baekhyun tells him. “Just please, don’t shut me out and tell me to stop trying, and to stop loving you and loving this. I want to make this work, and I want to do it where it’s not settling but you can do what you dream of doing and I can be there with you.”

“What about your girlfriend?” Yixing asks, and his voice is clipped. “You’ve run from this before, hidden yourself and made decisions without me that affected _both_ of us. You _lied_ to me and ignored me and shut me out. I don’t want to be with you if you’re just going to do tell me this and then take it all back.“

“She wasn’t my girlfriend,” Baekhyun tells him, stepping closer and biting his lip when Yixing flinches away. “We were set up by the company as a marketing and publicity stunt and just didn’t bother cutting it off. It was a professional farce. We slept together once, over a year ago, when we first got together and not since then. She’s dating her mentor and we’re friends.”

“She didn’t act like just a friend when she came in acting like your doting girl and kissing you.“

“I didn’t tell you because to me, it wasn’t a real relationship, and neither was it real to her. It was just publicity,” Baekhyun continues. “I officially ended things on Tuesday and contacted Junmyeon, my superior, to give the media a tip off so they can start running it.”

“So that’s it then?” Yixing asks. He swallows, eyes flickering between Baekhyun’s. “That’s it? You break up with your fake girlfriend, and tell me you have a plan and I’m just supposed to trust you?”

“No,” Baekhyun says. “You aren’t supposed to do anything. It’s your choice, and I won’t force you. I talked with Junmyeon yesterday and told him either I come back with you, or I hand in my resignation tomorrow.”

“You’re really going to drop everything you have just because I say yes or no?” Yixing is almost laughing. “Baekhyun, you talk big and make these plans and dreams and ideas and they- they sound so perfect and- and I want-“ He closes his eyes, throat working as he swallows. “I want to believe you, but I can’t trust that you won't run and not tell me what’s going on like you have before.”

“Okay,” Baekhyun says, and this time when he steps a closer, Yixing doesn’t flinch away. “Do you believe me, though, when I tell you I love you?”

“I want to,” Yixing murmurs quietly. He’s stopped crying, and the tracks of tears stain his cheeks, making the dark circles even worse. “But you’ve lied to me and to yourself so many times.”

“Do you love me then?” Baekhyun asks him, and Yixing stills finally.

“Yes.” Baekhyun lets his heart pound, the feeling in his chest soar and that feeling of weightless happiness spread through him. “Yes, I love you. I still loved you when I stopped working for JYE and I loved you when I tried to talk to you before you came back. You’re ridiculous and funny and I still don’t know if I can trust you but I love you.”

“Can you make me a promise?” Baekhyun asks, swallowing down the pleasant ache in his chest, feeling full and brimming.

“No.”

Baekhyun’s mouth almost twitches. He keeps a grip on Yixing’s hand. “When you love something, you let it go, but you already let me go, and I came back. I let you go, too, I let you walk away and I ignored you when you came back. It’s stupid of us, but in the end, we’re here now.”

Yixing’s fingers twitch to curl slightly around his own. 

“I once told you I wanted to live with you forever, that I’d be there forever, and I still want that. I love you and can let you go, but I also can hold on so tight that when something breaks, I’m here to keep it together. When you love something, you fight for it, and you keep it and remind yourself that you love it. Whatever it is you love, Yixing, I hope you love it more than anything, because being let go hurts them more than it could ever hurt you.” The soft splash of tears down Baekhyun’s face make his voice tighter, throatier, but he presses on. “Don’t let me go,” he says, voice cracking to a whisper. “I won’t let you go and I’ll hold onto you until I can’t. So hold onto me too, and never let me go, because forever isn’t easy but I want it with you.”

“This won’t just be your dream,” Yixing tells him, firmly. “This isn’t going to just be us together and in love. It’s work. A lot of work. And we're going to fight and get sick and-“

“Okay,” Baekhyun says, and steps nearer, into Yixing’s space. He allows a small smile as he looks at Yixing and reaches up carefully. Yixing doesn’t pull away when Baekhyun brushes the tears from his cheek. “Life isn’t easy though, and neither is love, but that’s what makes them worth it.”

“I didn’t ask to fall in love with you,” Yixing breathes, his breath hitching.

“But I’m glad you did,” Baekhyun says and rests his hand to Yixing’s cheek, thumb gently brushing away his tears. “I'm so glad you did.” Their hands laced between them, Baekhyun gives Yixing’s hand a small squeeze. “You don’t have to answer me immediately about what you want to do, but just know, whatever you decisions is, I’m not going anywhere this time.”

Yixing gives a small little nod, the dark circles so pronounced this close. Yixing’s lips are chapped from biting them, his eyes red from crying. But he is Yixing, solid before him and Baekhyun has never seen anything he loves more. “Okay,” Yixing says, closing his eyes, the tears clinging to his lashes. “Okay.”

“Do you still want me to leave or-“ Baekhyun begins, a soft tease in his voice and Yixing lets out a watery broken laugh, leaning into Baekhyun’s hand on his cheek. 

“No,” Yixing says, and it’s rough with emotion. “No, you can stay.” He wets his lip, his eyes flickering between both of Baekhyun’s. “I want you to stay. I always want you to stay.”

“Then you have me,” Baekhyun tells him gently and leans in just a bit to brush their lips together in a promise.

♭

The noise of the crowd outside is loud. A mass of bodies all swarming together in the area in front of the stage, talking and laughing and singing all together in a buzzing, teeming mass.

Honestly, when Baekhyun thinks about it like that, it sounds pretty gross. Yet he smiles anyway, peeking out at the huge sprawl of people. It stretches so he can’t even see their faces- just blobs of humans.

“Hey, enough peeking, you’re going to give yourself bad luck.”

Turning, Baekhyun looks up at Zitao who is frowning at him, immediately tugging and checking at his clothing. He’s got a headset on, the microphone curving around his cheek to rest at the edge of his curled lips. He’s in all black, sleek and stylish with his hair perfectly set despite the fact that the only people who see him are all backstage.

“Look, the more you tug at my jacket the more I think you just want to take it off me,” Baekhyun says, swatting his hands away. 

“Are you offering?” Zitao quips, stepping back to look at him, a hand rising to his hip. “I still think you should have gone with the gold.”

“Black is fine,” Baekhyun tells him. The excitement from the crowd is thrumming through him, building inside of him until he feels like there isn’t room for anything else. “Besides, they’re going to be more focused on my voice than if my jacket is black or gold or plaid.”

“I’m especially glad it isn’t plaid though,” Zitao says, giving Baekhyun a look that is mock horrified for him suggesting such a thing. “We have enough of that old town folkie thing going on with your shoes.”

“Are you saying I have bad taste in shoes?” Chanyeol asks, walking up and holding a clipboard. He looks at Zitao, eyes wide and loking mockingly scandalized. He is also dressed in almost all black. He has a white bowtie on, to match with the white suit jacket he’ll have on later. Once he’s on stage, in front of thousands of expectant audience members, and smiling his brilliant smile to welcome them all to the concert.

“I’m saying you take a concept too seriously,” Zitao tells him. “I thought all of us were in complete control.”

“Look, he couldn’t decide, so I decided for him,” Chanyeol says, aiming to try to swat Zitao’s head with the clipboard. He misses but grins anyway, glancing at Baekhyun and winking. “Nervous?”

“Yes,” Baekhyun says honestly.

“Just keep your throat open,” Zitao says. “Like when you give head, except without a dick in your mouth. Save that for after the show.”

“Thank you for that helpful advice,” Baekhyun tells his friend, who looks positively exuberant at the sardonic praise.

Closing his eyes, Baekhyun can hear the buzzing of the voices outside, waiting for him to stand on stage and the lights to dim. Zitao has wandered off, speaking quickly over his headset in varying pitches of speech and yelling. For a moment, Baekhyun is left alone.

Stepping back to lean against one of the walls, Baekhyun breathes in deep. Closing his eyes, he lets the breath fill him. It fills his mind with images of clearer days, of bright white sunlight against white lace curtains. Of apple orchards and soft white clouds as his head rests in a warm lap, fingers carding through his hair. Of recording studios late at night with take out containers littering the soundboards, music forgotten as he clambers into the recording booth to accept a slow dance with hearts beating together.

Behind closed eyelids, he runs the songs in his head, passing through them with a gentle touch, each one holding a meaning and a story. Wetting his lips and not caring if it smudges the gloss that Sunyoung hand applied earlier, Baekhyun exhales and lets the air flow from him in a constant stream.

Calming and grounding him.

“Stop looking so anxious, you’re making me nervous,” says a voice whispered into his ear, breath tickling over his skin. If it were anyone else, Baekhyun may have flinched away, but the touch at his hip and the warm scent of chamomile has him leaning in.

Opening his eyes, he looks into a familiar face close to his own. The arch of his brows over his eyes is more pronounced, the dusting of powder over his face and the dark lining his eyes making them deeper. His eyes are the same though, the same dancing bright amazing life that Baekhyun fell in love with years ago.

Those eyes and the man they belong to. “If you want to see nervous, go check on Junmyeon,” Baekhyun tells him, leaning in so their noses brush, closing his fingers over the hand at his hip. “I swear, he’s trying to give himself a midlife crisis.”

“I’m pretty sure you were his mid life crisis come early,” Yixing laughs back and Baekhyun smiles. Just being with him, some of the tension eases, and he relaxes. Happy and with a gentle hum through him that pleasantly quells his mind.

Allowing himself one more moment of quiet, he closes his eyes. He leans in just a little, pressing his lips to those before him. It’s a simple kiss, but it makes him warm, bright and smiling when he pulls away.

“For luck,” he says as dark rimmed eyes open to meet his.

The kiss lingers at the back of his mind as Chanyeol pulls them up a moment later, the staff a flurry as they get ready to start. Baekhyun settles himself into his spot on the darkened stage, the lights low. The crowd is hushed, and he glances beside him. Yixing is already standing, poised and handsome and perfect just beside him. His grandfather’s guitar is slung over his shoulder as he looks out into the crowd.

It’s easy to reach to him, slipping their hands together, interlocking their fingers. Yixing turns to him, slow and his smile warm and real on his face.

“Ready?” Baekhyun asks him. The soft hushed whispers of the crowds surrounds them and the stands with waiting microphones just before them.

“Always,” Yixing says, a laugh in his voice and love in his eyes.

The next moment, the stage lights rise up, blinding the stage and Baekhyun raises his arms, holding his and Yixing’s connected hands for the entire world to see and smiles with everything he has.

This is the beginning of their forever.

♭end ♭


End file.
